


The Anatomist

by SallyLovette



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Blood and Gore, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-12-07 22:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 26
Words: 29,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20983142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SallyLovette/pseuds/SallyLovette
Summary: As an alchemist/inventor, Varian is in the business of solving problems. Which means he doesn’t need anyone else’s help—ever. After all, who knows better than him?(Read the tags!)





	1. Chapter 1

When Varian was sixteen, he fractured his wrist. He didn’t feel like going to the doctor, so he wrapped it in gauze and went about his work. Just as long as he didn’t put pressure on it or try to use it at all, it was fine. 

At some point, elbows-deep in machinery and concentrating too intently to remember his injury, he tried to make an adjustment with the wrong hand. Pain shot up his arm, knocking him off the ladder and flat on his back. He curled up on his side, cursing furiously. 

Because he’d always been lucky, there was a knock at the door at that exact moment. He dragged himself up and answered it. It was an emissary from Oro, requesting an update on a machine the king had ordered. 

“It’ll be ready in a few weeks.” Varian started to nudge the door closed with his foot, impatient to return to the problem at hand. 

“The king asks if he can provide any materials or services that would make the job go faster.” 

“No, thanks.”

“The great kingdom of Oro humbly expresses its thanks for all of your efforts, Sir Varian.”

“Varian,” he corrected irritably. “Just Varian. Is there anything else?” Before the man could answer, he slammed the door in his face and stomped back to his worktable. With his good arm, he swept all the books, papers, and pencils onto the floor. His x-ray device was almost impossible to lift with one arm, but he managed after a few tries.

It was bad. He didn’t think it was this bad. He rested his forehead on the tabletop and tried to think of a solution.

When Rapunzel stopped by that evening, laden with a basket of hot pastries because for some reason she was under the impression that he would forget to eat if she didn’t constantly remind him, he was poking around inside his arm with a pair of tweezers. A pair of forceps held open the incision, which extended from the center of his hand to his mid-forearm and was lit by a lamp with an exceptionally bright bulb. A bloody scalpel rested atop a pearl-white, presumably disinfected cloth, along with a needle and a spool of thread that looked like they were waiting to be used. His bones were grayish-white and shiny in the lamplight. The surrounding flesh was a startling vermillion.

She screamed and dropped the basket. Varian looked up, surprised. One of his eyes was greatly magnified by a powerful lens that, by the slap-dash appearance of it, was one of his most recent inventions. He scowled and looked back down.

“Can you come back later? I’m kinda busy.”

“What are you doing?” she asked after a pause, in a quavery voice that made him wonder if, despite her well-documented bravery, a little gore would possibly be enough to cause her to faint. He waited for her to go away. This was a very delicate procedure, and he really needed to concentrate right now.

She didn’t move. He muttered under his breath, half to her, half to himself, “it would be easier if I had another hand to work with.”

“But why?”

Varian sighed. She was distracting him. “Remember that guy from a week ago?”

“The one who…?” The one who grabbed you, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say. The one who tried to kill you. Varian’s father had forgiven him, and so had Rapunzel and Flynn and some others, but a lot of people—at least one, anyway—still held a grudge. Apparently. Varian considered himself lucky that Flynn had been there to save his hide. Otherwise, he might’ve walked away with much worse than a fracture. Hell, he might not have walked away at all.

Rapunzel was trying to talk him into going to the doctor. “Hey, you know what?” he interrupted. “I could actually use a hand with this. Do you mind?”

He wasn’t looking at her, and he’d spoken softly enough so that she could pretend not to have heard, if she wanted. But she didn’t.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked, coming over to his side.

“I used a special anesthetic.”

“Varian—”

“I’m also on a lot of drugs right now. Like, seriously a lot. I’m probably not going to remember any of this.”

“Oh, my god.”

“Yeah, and they’re gonna start wearing off in about an hour, so I definitely want this closed up before then. So—” he assumed she was willing to help her, because she hadn’t left yet— “so what I need you to do is to glue that shard to there, like that, so that they’re together. Like a puzzle, see? Careful—here, take them.” He put the tweezers in her petite hands, which, he was grateful to observe, were completely steady. “Just—”

She took the magnifying glass off his head and put it on hers. Then she leaned in and finished the operation. He watched closely, giving instructions here and there, but, to his surprise, she barely needed them. “You’re really good at this,” he remarked.

“We are gonna have a long talk once you’re cognizant again.”

“I’m cognizant right now. You think I’d attempt an operation on myself if I couldn’t think straight?”

“I just don’t understand why you would do this at all.”

“I’m the smartest person I know. If I can’t do it, who can?” 

She was silent. When the fragments of his bones had been reassembled and glued together, she stitched him up with perfect, dainty little stitches. “Did you want to embroider a heart, too?” he teased. 

“I’m good at sewing,” she said, shrugging. “I did it every day for eighteen years.”

“Wanna be my lab assistant?”

She smiled. “Almost. But there’s no sunlight in here.”

He tried to think of a response, but the next thing he knew she was shouting his name, repeatedly, urgently, and then everything was dark. He woke up the next morning with his arm bandaged and his workshop dusted, swept, mopped, and scrubbed, all of his papers in order and his tools polished and put away. She was as good as a tornado, only instead of causing destruction, she reversed it. The place had literally never been this clean, not even when it was brand new.


	2. Chapter 2

His dad entered without knocking.“Get up, Varian,” he instructed, in a tone he rarely used— authoritative, no-nonsense. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” 

“I can’t right now.” 

“Please, son. You’ve been shut up in your room for months.”

“This isn’t my room,” Varian corrected, not looking up, “it’s my lab, and I’ve had my hands more than full with commissions. Some of them have to be exported across entire oceans. I have to do paperwork and hire merchants to transport the pieces and god help them if the don’t follow my instructions to the letter, because the assembly is very—”

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Quirin indicated the book Varian was reading. At some point, he’d put down _Advanced Chemistry_ and picked up _Flynn Ryder and the Temple of Doom._ He blushed. “I’m taking a break right now.”

“Good. Come along. But comb your hair first.” 

The “someone I’d like you to meet” was a young, dark-haired, fair-skinned prince from a kingdom probably nearby, the name of which Varian didn’t bother to try and remember because he was already back to thinking about his blueprints halfway through his father’s introduction. He was nagged by a certain mistake he was sure he now knew how to fix, if he could just get his hands on a pencil and paper—

“I’ve heard so much about you,” the prince said, smiling in a way that Varian could tell was meant to be charming. “Your father is awfully proud of you, you know.”

Varian felt a flutter of gratification. He fought back a smile and lost. “I know,” he said. “Thanks, uh...”

“Hansel.”

“Right. I’m Varian.”

“I know.” 

Of course. “Well. Um—” Varian tried to think of a polite—or, if it came to that, a not-so-polite—way to excuse himself, but Hansel said, “you’re even more beautiful than I imagined,” and, just like that, he was speechless. Hansel laughed, and, off to the side, so did his father. Varian stiffened, whatever vague interest in civility he may have had up until this point rapidly diminishing.

“Well,” he said stiffly, “with all due respect, your highness—” Hansel’s smile faded at that, to Varian’s immense satisfaction— “I don’t know what my father has lead you to believe, but I have no interest whatsoever in marriage.”

His father stopped laughing. “Varian!”

“What?” Varian frowned at his shoes, his face burning with embarrassment. “I’m just being honest.”

“Prince Hans has traveled a long way to meet you.”

“But, dad—”

“Why don’t you two go for a walk? Get to know each other. Go on,” he insisted, giving Varian a tiny shove when it looked like he wanted to argue. “A little sunlight will do you good.”

“What happened to your wrist?” Prince Hansel—“Hans,” he said with a smile, “just Hans, please”— asked after they’d been walking for a while. The fresh air was admittedly pleasant, and the late sunlight was honey-colored, making everything glow. Birds sang and leaves rustled— it was nice. Varian felt himself loosening up, a little.

“Someone grabbed me. I guess they were angry that I blew up their house.” 

“Oh, my god.”

“Where are you from?” 

“Besessen.” 

“Yeah.” Varian tried to think of the best way to phrase “I’m sorry you were lead to believe that you were meeting your future husband today” without sounding cold or insensitive. “Um. I’m sorry this didn’t work out.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, my dad— like I said, I don’t know what he told you, but—” _It’s impossible,_ Varian wanted to say, _you and I. Us. _Hans cut him off abruptly. 

“The King and Queen of Corona are hosting a ball tonight.”

Varian’s heart sank. “Yeah.” 

“Will you come with me? You can borrow some of my clothes, or—” 

“Nah,” he said, hugging his injured wrist gingerly to his chest. He hadn’t been to the castle in a long time. “They know me. I won’t get kicked out for breaking their dress code. But you should know I can’t dance.” 

“That’s okay,” Hans said, immediately. “I can teach you.”

It seemed he simply wouldn’t be deterred. Varian thought, what’s the harm in just one date? The poor guy came all this way for nothing. “I’ll meet you there.” 

“I can pick you up at your place.” 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to.” 

“Please.” Before he knew what was happening, Hans was kneeling in front of him, clasping his hand— his good hand. “I want to. Do me this honor.”

Varian resisted the urge to pull away. “Uh, sure, then... I guess. Just, don’t go to any trouble, or anything.”

“Is that your way of asking me not to bring flowers?” 

“Please,” Varian said, relieved. “I just don’t want people to think...” _To think we’re together._

Hans kissed his hand. “As you wish.”

That evening, Varian was halfway into his formal wear when he changed his mind. He wasn't going. He only had about a thousand better things to do, and what was the point in leading Hansel on?

His father wouldn’t hear of it. "Why are you so dead set against getting married?” he wanted to know. “You're all alone, Varian. What are you going to do when I die? Who will take care of you?"

"I don’t need anyone. I can take care of myself."

"Must I bring up the issue of money?"

"People have been buying my inventions. I don't need extra help." This wasn't the whole, exact truth, and they both knew it, but rather than press the subject, his father simply sighed, looking him over.

"Your hair is a mess. You can't go out like that."

“Didn't you hear me?” Varian snapped. “I said I'm not going.”

His dad reached for him. He tried to duck, but he grabbed his arm and started to forcefully brush his hair. He squirmed and tried to escape, protesting, but his father simply ignored him. “Trust me,” he said. “When you’re older, you’ll see that this was all for the best.”

Varian made another unsuccessful attempt to break free, then finally gave up. He held still in his father’s grip, grumbling bitterly. “Mom would never force me to get married.”

It was a low blow, but Varian didn’t care. His father looked saddened. He let him go and watched as he retreated a safe distance to mess his hair up again.

“No one’s forcing you to get married. I just want the two of you to get to know each other.”

“But dad,” Varian pleaded, growing increasingly desperate, “he’s a prince. Why would he want to marry someone like me?”

“Don’t sell yourself short, son. You’re a remarkable young man— skilled, clever, brave... handsome,” he added, half-teasingly.

Varian didn’t say anything; he was resigned. His father brushed his hair back again, turned him around, and secured it with a leather cord. “There,” he said. “Perfect. Now, will you at least try to get along?” 

Varian crossed his arms. It felt weird not to have a curtain of hair over his eyes— like he was missing something. “Ugh. Fine.”

Hansel didn’t bring flowers. He brought a new pair of work gloves. Varian’s old gloves—his most prized and trustworthy possessions— had been accidentally destroyed by Rapunzel... not that he was in any sort of position to hold that against her. They had been heavy because they had an interior lining of chain mail to protect his hands, but these gloves, though just as strong, were as soft and light as air. They had to have cost a fortune— they might even have been magic.

“I told you not to get me anything,” Varian said, reluctant, yet tempted, to accept them.

“You said not to bring flowers.”

Varian smiled. “Thanks." He tried them on, holding his hands out and admiring them. "They’re actually really cool.”

“Maybe we can put them to the test sometime,” Hans suggested. “I’d love to see your workshop.” 

"Yeah, maybe," Varian muttered, sliding them back off, hoping Hans didn't notice how disingenuous he sounded. Hans took a step forward, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him. Varian jumped out of his skin, blushing brightly, and tried to step back, but Hans pulled him closer and kissed him again.

At a loss, Varian went completely still and closed his eyes. His blood rushed in his ears. He hadn’t expected this— not so soon.

Hansel stepped back, smiling, and took Varian's hand. "Come on," he said. "The carriage is waiting."


	3. Chapter 3

“I can see your eyes,” Rapunzel said, referring to the fact that his hair was tied back for the first time since they’d known each other. Varian wasn’t listening. Pain washed over him in waves. His vision was blurry, and he was certain he was going to throw up.

At some point Hans must have asked him to dance, because the next thing he knew they were hand-in-hand in the middle of the ballroom, surrounded on all sides by women in elegant gowns and men in dashing suits. He felt crowded, suffocated, like there was no way out. Hans asked him if he was okay. The music was swelling. Feeling inexplicably generous—elated, even—Varian admitted to himself that Hans was in fact breathtakingly handsome.

When he regained consciousness, he was lying flat on his back on the floor. Anxious partygoers formed a wide circle above him. He couldn’t make out what they were saying. The words eluded his grasp—in one ear, out the other. The chandelier, though far away, was incredibly, painfully bright.

He groaned.

“Varian!” It was Rapunzel again, kneeling beside him. She was especially beautiful tonight, and he longed to tell her so— maybe he could have, if the circumstances had been different. “Varian, what’s wrong?” 

“He fainted,” Hans said worriedly, his voice sounding inexplicably far away and echoey. “He looks pale—could he be ill?”

Varian lost consciousness again, but only for a few seconds. When he woke up, someone was carrying him. He struggled, feebly, to get down. 

“My lab,” he said, “I need—” His face was dripping with water, as though someone had emptied a glass to try to revive him.

It was his wrist, of course. It wasn’t healing. The procedure had been experimental, but he was so sure it would work and so impatient to get back to the Oro project that he ignored the risks. The bone glue was his own creation, and it—and also, maybe, if he was completely honest, the salve—seemed to be doing more harm than good. 

If he could just get to his lab, he could fix it. 

“No way,” Rapunzel said. “We’re taking you to the doctor.” 

“I don’t need a doctor.” 

“Um,” said Flynn, who was, of course, the one carrying him—bridal style, like they were on their honeymoon (Varian made a mental note to kill himself later, so he wouldn’t have to live with the humiliation)— “you passed out in the middle of the king’s birthday party. You definitely need a doctor.” 

“The king’s birthday?” Is that what that party was for?

“Don’t worry, kiddo. Everything is going to be fine.” 

“Put me down.” 

“Can’t do that, kid.” 

“No, I mean put me down because—” 

Flynn understood just in time. He put Varian down, and the kid dropped to his knees and expelled everything in his stomach. 

“Jeez,” said Flynn, grimacing. “You better not get me sick. That’s all I’m gonna say.” 

I’m not sick, Varian almost said, but then— coughing and wiping his mouth— he thought twice. It was probably better to keep them in the dark. If anyone tried to interfere with his wrist, they would no doubt just make it worse.

He needed his lab. 

“Varian.” Rapunzel was rubbing his back and talking to him in a soothing voice. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” He didn’t look at her. “Where’s Hans?” 

“He wanted to come with us, but we told him to give you space. He’s with my mom and dad.”

Varian had a sudden idea. He felt in his jacket for a smoke bomb, then realized, of course, those would be in his other jacket—his work jacket. 

Both Flynn and Rapunzel saw him reach for a bomb. They stepped back, looking afraid. When they realized he had nothing, they exchanged glances. 

Varian gave up. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go. But I need to go home right after.” 

“Of course you can go home, Varian,” Rapunzel said, shifting fluidly from tense and wary to diplomatic and kind. “We just want to make sure you’re okay. Does your dad know you’re sick?” 

“No.” It occured to him that if he’d faked being sick, his dad might not have forced him to go on this date to begin with. _Stupid,_ he berated himself, _why didn’t you think of that earlier?_ He practically wept to imagine the amount of trouble it would have saved him. “No, he doesn’t know.” 

“We’ll send word.” 

“No, don’t. I don’t want him to worry. I’ll just explain things myself when I get home.” 

“Shame about your date,” she teased. “He’s cute.” 

“He’s okay, I guess. Can we go now?” He knew he should thank them. He resolved to do it later. Right now, he had far too much on his mind. 

The doctor was immensely displeased with him. He berated him for not eating or sleeping enough and wanted to know why there was no record of Varian ever visiting him before, not even after breaking his wrist. 

“I didn’t realize it was broken,” Varian lied, eager to get this over with; pain was still attacking him in waves, and the sooner he could fix it, the better. “I thought it just needed to heal.” 

“By all accounts, you are a very intelligent young man. One would think you knew how to tell a decent lie.” The doctor gave him a calculating look, then handed him a glass jar. Varian stared at it cluelessly.

“What’s this for?” 

“We’re doing a drug test.” 

“What? No! Can’t you just... give me a shot or something?” 

“Do you imbibe any of the chemicals or mixtures in your lab?” 

“What?” Varian was taken aback. “No. Of course not.” 

“You’ve never attempted to mix potions or elixirs and test them on yourself?” 

Varian squirmed under the doctor’s intensely scrutinizing gaze. _How did he know?_ “No.” 

“So you are aware that such an act would be inadvisable.” The doctor spoke in a tone of voice that made him realize there was no point in lying. “You’re smart, Varian,” he said, almost gently, “but you’re just a child, and please don’t be offended, but your ideas have a long history of not working.” 

Varian stood up and put his shirt back on. The doctor reviewed his clipboard. “Are you quite sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”

“Like what,” Varian spat, then slammed the door on his way out. The princess and her boyfriend were waiting for him, but he brushed past without glancing their way. 

“Thanks for the help,” he said, not insincerely. “Tell your father I said happy birthday.”


	4. Chapter 4

Varian broke into his own workshop, expertly avoiding all the traps he set up to capture unwanted trespassers, so that his dad wouldn’t be able to ask him why he came home early. Sweaty and shaking, still in a decent amount of pain, he didn’t think he could come up with a convincing lie just then.

Poison. There was no need to run tests. The glue he’d put in his body was highly poisonous, and it was making him sick. He would have to find some way to neutralize it before it killed him.

As quietly as possible, he switched on the lamp and began sorting through his various phials and beakers of chemicals. He was going to have to reopen the incision and try to dissolve it. An acidic compound might work, but he would have to be careful not to melt his actual bones or any other part of his arm— just the glue. Once that was done, he’d have to figure out some other way to treat the injury. A metal brace, secured with tiny screws, was the most likely option. That was plan B. Plan C was slightly more aggressive, and plan D... well, it probably wasn’t going to come to that, but if it did, everything was ready.

One way or another, he reassured himself, it was going to be okay.

He dug up a paintbrush for the compound he’d selected, then downed three different potions— one to stem the bleeding, one to keep him from feeling the pain of operating on his own fully conscious body, and one to amplify his fortitude. They all tasted awful and he almost couldn’t keep them down; in order to be effective, he had to drink them in fairly large amounts. Once he finally managed it, he turned over an hourglass and waited fifteen minutes to be sure they had taken effect.

The scalpel was a millimeter away from his skin when there came a knock at his door. He looked up, strands of raven-black and sky-blue hair tumbling out of his half-ponytail and into his eyes. He took a deep, steadying breath and called out, “what?” and then cursed himself when his voice still sounded shaky.

“Son.” His dad’s voice, muffled through the wood of the door, was mildly surprised. “You’re home. I didn’t see you come in.” 

“I’m busy.”

“Prince Hans is here. He wants to know if you’re all right.”

Prince Hans? Damn it. “I’m fine.”

“He says you fainted at the party. Is this true?” The doorknob rattled. “Open the door.” 

Varian held the scalpel frozen above his arm, ready to cut; he couldn’t afford to be interrupted. Tersely, he shouted, “I can’t right now.” A bead of sweat rolled of his nose and landed on the smooth, disinfected surface of his arm.

“Is everything all right?”

“It’s fine! Just— just tell him to come back later. I’m doing important work.” Technically, he wasn’t lying. He listened intently for his father’s response. To his horror, it was Hans who spoke. 

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Varian squeezed his eyes shut, willed himself to remain composed. “I said, I’m fine!”

They started whispering amongst themselves, too quietly for him to hear. Then, finally, after what felt like forever, they bade him good-night and left. He exhaled in relief, then refocused on the surgery. He’d used marker to draw a line where the incision should be, and a list of steps, written clearly in black ink on parchment, was tacked at eye level before him. He’d left nothing to chance; he could not, _would not_ screw up. “Not this time,” he muttered under his breath, just as the blade bit into his flesh. Drops of blood glinted like rubies in the lamplight.

The elixirs worked. He didn’t feel a thing. However, an unexpected side effect came in the form of random, intermittent blackouts. One moment, he was applying the acid with precision and care; the next, he was crumpled on the floor, and his chair and part of the table were melted, and he was trying to remember what part of the operation he’d left off on, but he couldn’t.

Another blackout, and he awoke to find himself choking back more anti-pain potion that he couldn’t remember deciding he needed. It tasted slightly off, and he realized that he drank literally his entire stock and then had to brew more while half-conscious and with barely enough ingredients. Why was he still drinking it? The side effects of ingesting such a large quantity were terrible.

There was a hole in his floor. There was no more acid compound— he’d either dropped it or used it all.

He blacked out again, and when he came to, he was sewing something.

The next time he woke up, it was daytime. Someone was knocking on the door. “Varian! Varian, open up right this second!”

Varian groaned. “Rapunzel...?” He sat up slowly. His memories were hazy; had the surgery been a success? He couldn’t remember. 

One look at his arm answered that question. 

Hungover, he threw his coat over his shoulders, successfully blocking the mangled remnants of his half-melted arm from view just as the door was kicked in. Rapunzel towered over him. “How could you?” 

“Princess,” he greeted her, feeling strangely calm. “You’re looking well this morning.”

She grabbed his ear and dragged him, exhausted and protesting, the the front of his house. His dad had already left for work.

Flowers. Blue ones, yellow ones, pink ones, red ones. Varian couldn’t remember where he’d gotten them or even why, but here they were, filling the front yard, spilling over everything in sight. There were enough flowers to fill a thousand meadows, stretching on for as far as he could see.

“Would you mind explaining why every flower in the kingdom of Corona is sitting in front of your house?” Rapunzel was furious. Varian wanted to help her, but he couldn’t remember what he needed the flowers for. Just how long had he been unconscious, anyway? He stepped out of her grip and marveled at the sight.

“I’m not sure,” he muttered, bewildered. “Did I do this?”

There was a card attached to the arrangement closest to the door. He read it several times, his brain taking ten times longer than usual to process anything, and suddenly it all became clear.

She was studying him. “What is it?” 

In a daze, staring out into nothing, he passed her the card. It was a love note from Hans.


	5. Chapter 5

Varian spent the next six weeks in his workshop, struggling to contain his most recent huge and irreparable mistake. At some point during that time, Hans went home to Besessen. Well, Varian thought, at least some good came of all this. It seemed like his father had given up trying to marry him off, at least for the time being. They didn’t say good-bye; Varian refused to leave his lab for anything.

How was he going to tell his father what he’d done? His right hand was gone, history, along with part of his arm. He considered himself incredibly lucky that the pain medicine had the side effect of wiping his memory. He couldn’t remember the exact moment he messed up, but from the looks of it, he’d used completely the wrong compound; he was lucky he hadn’t been killed.

It was no easy task building a prosthesis one-handed. Such a thing may have been feasible twenty-four hours ago, but in his current condition— half-blind with illness, completely addled by pain of all colors and flavors— he couldn’t even begin to work on it until he was mostly healed. The blueprints took three days, construction a week, and even then, he was left with something rudimentary and awkward. The joints were big and clunky, and they clicked loudly when he used them. He couldn’t grasp a pencil or anything else that small.

However, it served its main purpose: with his gloves on, no one could suspect what he’d done. Maybe it wasn’t enough to hide the truth forever, but it would buy him time until he could think of a way to explain himself. But was there any way to make “I turned a simple fracture into an amputation through sheer incompetence” sound less awful than it was?

It was nothing short of a miracle that Rapunzel hadn’t noticed what was wrong. After realizing what she’d mistaken to be one of Varian’s latest harebrained schemes was nothing more than a gesture of affection extended by someone with enough money to purchase or otherwise acquire every flower within a ten-mile radius, she apologized for having leapt to conclusions. “It’s okay,” he said, expending a massive amount of effort to make himself sound normal. “I’ll apologize to everyone and plant all new ones.”

“How are you feeling?” 

“Better.” Not since the incident with the black rocks and the shriveled sun-drop flower had he lied to her so blatantly. “Much better. Sorry, I can’t talk, I have to...” He mumbled some lame excuse about a volatile experiment he was supposed to be keeping an eye on. 

“Oh,” she said, “okay, then.” She was still holding the card; she chewed her lip, looking at it and not him. “Hey, Varian?” she said, finally. “I know you liked Cass.” 

Varian was startled. They'd never talked about Cass’s betrayal; he’d understood it to be a sensitive subject and had avoided it out of principle more for her sake than his own. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t you miss her?” 

Varian thought about it. “I never really knew her,” he said, and realized it was true. 

“But this Hans guy. Do you really love him, or...?”

“No. I mean, yes,” he corrected hastily, seeing her look of worry. “I... I have to go,” he stammered clumsily, beginning to grow desperate. “Work... stuff. Uh, thanks for dropping by. Sorry about the....” 

“Oh,” she said softly. “Okay, well, bye.” He’d almost shut the door when she called, “Varian, did you want this?” She was holding the card out to him. The easiest thing would be to take it with his right hand, without turning his body at an awkward angle, but he had no right hand anymore. Trying to look as casual as possible, he let go of the doorknob and stepped back towards her; she stared at him in surprise. He took the card and smiled, backing away before she had the chance to speak.

“See you ‘round.” 

He shut the door, threw his back against it, and sank down with a sigh. He dropped the card as if it was worthless and looked at his arm. He had a lot of work to do, but first, it was time for a long, long, very long elixir-induced sleep.

Before going to his lab, he filched a loaf of bread and a flagon of water from the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry now, but he certainly would be later, and Ruddiger, though an expert at finding food, was not consistent enough in his generosity to be one hundred percent reliable. If Varian had learned one thing for sure in sixteen years, it was better safe than sorry.

He saw his father for the first time in six weeks when his meager store of food ran out and he had no choice but to leave his lab. He’d donned Hans’s gift gloves, which were amazing in every way. In a moment of unprecedented foolishness, he’d dripped acid on them as a test, and they hadn’t even melted. He’d begun to suspect they were indestructible. 

Whether they were or not, they hid his mistake perfectly. “I’ve missed you, my boy,” his father said. “That project of yours must be about finished, hm?” 

The Oro project. Varian felt as if the floor had fallen out from beneath him. He’d promised the king it would be done by now, and he hadn’t made even the slightest bit of progress since that day. He was weeks, months behind, and the thought had never occurred to him until now. 

“Uh, yeah,” he lied, “just about.” 

“Those aren’t your usual gloves.” 

“Oh, uh, no. Those were destroyed when we freed you from the amber.” He avoided eye contact, focusing on the gloves instead. Not only were they practically indestructible, he noticed, they were the deepest, truest shade of black he’d ever seen. The only thing he might be able to compare them to was Rapunzel’s hair when she was in dark mode. “Hans gave these to me.” 

His father said nothing. Varian began to fidget. He cleared his throat and began to back away. “I just have to finish up. The king of Oro isn’t as kind and understanding as our king,” he added nervously, speaking almost to himself. “He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Does he compensate you well?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Very well. Run along, then.”

For once, Varian was happy to obey.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the all the comments!

The best part about not being a criminal anymore was spending time with Rapunzel. Everything about her was beautiful, from her smile to her eyes to her hopeful outlook on life. Just being around her made him feel like a better person. This was doubly true when he was helping her with a problem.

Today, it was the ovens in the castle kitchen. They were malfunctioning, burning everything that was put in them and filling the entire floor with dense black smoke. Rapunzel fretted that Varian wouldn't be able to breathe if he stayed down there for too long, but he wasn't worried. He pulled his scarf and goggles over his face and got to work.

He was grateful for the gloves. Their inexplicable durability made them perfect for whatever work he was doing, and their light, graceful design made them less unwieldy than any other pair he owned, which was good, because he had to keep them on at all times whenever people were around. He hadn't had a chance to modify his prosthesis; he'd been working nonstop on the Oro project ever since his father inadvertently reminded him about it. Of course, he dropped what he was doing the second Rapunzel sent for him. His priorities were ordered thusly: Rapunzel first, work second, himself— and his arm— last.

She laughed at him when he emerged. "You're covered in soot," she said, and it was true. He was blackened from head to toe. Even the blue streak in his hair was the color of ebony. 

Varian was more than contented to be the object of her amusement, just as long as she was happy. Things have been tense— not just between the two of them, but all across the country— for far too long now, and he felt he would never get tired of hearing her laugh. 

She grabbed his hand. "Come on," she said. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"That's okay." Knowing Rapunzel, "cleaned up" didn't refer simply to a quick pass at his face with a wet towel. She wanted to take his clothes off and have them— and, most likely, him— thoroughly washed, and that, of course, was out of the question... at least, presuming his gloves counted as clothes, which, as far and away the filthiest item on him at the moment, he was certain they did. 

"I insist."

"I'll wash up when I get home," he maintained, resisting. "The ovens should be working properly now. Was there anything else you needed?"

"In a hurry much?" She smiled archly. "No one's seen you in months. What have you been up to?"

"I'm building a machine for the king of Oro."

"I thought you finished that project a while ago."

"There were some, uh, complications. But I really do have to go." He tried to pull away, but the next thing he knew he was tied up in her hair and she was tugging him along like a puppy on a leash.

"Nope. It's time for you to rest and take it easy."

"Rapunzel," he said helplessly, but she ignored him. 

"You're my friend, Varian," she said, "and I can tell when my friends are stressed out." She shoved him into a guest room, then into the bathroom off it. His legs hit the edge of the tub (thankfully empty), and he tumbled in; still trapped in her hair, any attempt to escape failed. Before he could stop her, she plucked off his goggles and his scarf, then tossed them aside. “You deserve a break.”

Certain she was going to reach for his gloves next, he tried desperately to squirm away. She didn't notice, and tugged at his shoes. "Why are there so many buckles?" she asked cheerfully. “And everything with you is always black, black, black. We have to get you a better wardrobe.”

Varian was beginning to panic; he didn't know what to do. "Princess," he started, then faltered. "Please—"

“Varian, that's enough.” Her tone became authoritative. “As princess of Corona, I hereby order you to relax.”

She tossed his shoes aside, then reached for his gloves. He flinched violently and shouted, "wait!"

She froze, staring at him. He thought fast. “I-I just realized,” he stammered, “I left the burners on at my house. I need to leave— right now!” 

She shrugged. “I’ll have one of the servants run to Old Corona and shut it off.” 

“No way,” he protested, his outrage completely genuine. “I’m the only one allowed to touch my stuff. If you let someone in there without me, they’ll blow the whole place up!”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve been avoiding me?” 

“What?” He was startled. “I haven’t.” 

She gave her hair a tug, freeing him; he sat up and moved away from her. She sat down on the rim of the tub and stared at the drain. 

“Remember when we first met?” she asked. “You were trying to bring hot running water to your village.”

He rubbed his neck, blushing. “I remember.”

“I want you to know something.” She was running her hands through her long, golden hair. “Long-term relationships aren’t something you should rush into.”

“I know that,” he said, defensively. “That’s why I’m not in one. How can I be, with my career?”

“And I want you to know,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, “from someone with firsthand experience. Some parents are willing to do anything to keep their children safe. Sometimes that means keeping them nearby. Sometimes it means sending them away.”

“What are you talking about?” Her tone of voice, the look on her face, was making him uneasy, and he didn’t know why.

“I’m just saying, you should be careful. Things aren’t always what they seem.” She hesitated. “Did your father introduce you to Prince Hans?”

He nodded. "Why?”

“How did they meet?”

“How did...?”

“They’re from two different kingdoms, and they have nothing in common. I mean, how do they know each other?”

He didn't know; he'd never even thought about it. "I don't know," he said at last.

"Your father doesn't even travel, and the prince of Besessen has no business in Old Corona, but all of sudden you’re being pressured to get married? Don't you think that's just the slightest bit strange?"

"I'll ask him," Varian decided, because he couldn’t for the life of him think of anything else to say. They were silent for a while. Then Rapunzel pointed to his gloves. “They look different,” she remarked. “What— no buttons, no dials?”

“I know.” He winked at her cheekily, to hide his uncertainty. “I usually prefer something flashier, but these were the best I could do on short notice.”

She stood up and kissed his forehead, getting soot on her mouth and chin to match that which had gotten on her hands and in her hair. “Go home now,” she told him, “but please come back soon. I want us to be able to have a longer talk.”

“I will,” he promised, and even though the amount of work, the heaps of problems, he was embroiled in— his arm, his father, the project, Hans, who was still on his mind from time to time (certainly now more than ever, thanks to Rapunzel)— would make it almost impossibly difficult, he knew that he still would, no matter what. 


	7. Chapter 7

When he got home, there was a cat asleep on his worktable. How did it get past the critter traps? He edged closer, curious. It was very small, a baby, with orange and brown stripes. Around its neck was a blue ribbon to which a familiar-looking note was attached. Another gift from Hans, Varian thought irritably. He picked up the note, skimmed it over, and tossed it aside. Then he picked up the cat, which was almost small enough to fit in just one hand, and carried it outside.

His dad was cutting wood. Varian greeted him deferentially, and they were silent for a while. It was nearing sundown, and he shivered in the chilly air.

"So," he asked finally, steeling his nerves and trying to sound nonchalant, "so, dad, how did you meet Hans?"

His dad paused, wiping his brow, then lifted the ax and split a piece of wood with a single, powerful chop. Varian waited a long time for an answer, then scowled when he realized he wasn't getting one. Cross, he petted the cat on its head; it started to purr, nuzzling its face into his hand. "Look what he got me."

His dad glanced up. "Are you going to keep it?"

Varian sighed, lifting the cat to eye level; without opening its eyes, it licked his nose, its tongue rough like sandpaper. "Well, it's a massive inconvenience, but I suppose so." He affected a casual manner, cradling the small animal to his chest, protecting it from the frigid wind. "What do you think a good name for him will be?"

"How about Varian Junior?"

Varian smiled despite himself, but, just as quickly as it arrived, his good mood faded. "Dad, how come you want me to get married?" he asked. His father said nothing. Varian pressed, "You know that if I marry Hans, he'll want me to go live with him, in his castle. All the way in Besessen." Varian faltered, uncertain. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

His dad stopped mid-swing. Varian felt himself grow angry. "It's true," he cried, "isn't it? You don't want me around?"

"Son—"

"I don't want to get married. If you want me to leave, just say so, and I will! I know what I did to you— to everyone— was terrible, and I can't expect people to forgive me, but—"

"Son." His dad put the ax down and stood in front of him, holding him by the shoulders and looking straight into his eyes. Varian fell silent at once. "Of course I want you around. Of course I forgive you. What happened was outside of anyone's control."

Varian was desperately confused. "Then why—?"

"I'm only doing what's best for you. Everything I do is so that you can be happy."

Varian burst into tears. "Marrying Hans won't make me happy.”

His father hugged him. "I know that you think that now, but someday, you'll see that it was the right thing."

Varian cried. His father's chest was a warm, solid bulk beneath him, and his arms were like pillars. Not for the first time, he wondered why he wasn't given his father's build. Instead, he was a skinny, weak, bitter, resentful egghead who cared more about books than people, and— unlike his dad, who was always composed, capable, and plenty forceful when he needed to be— he couldn't seem to control a single thing that happened to him. He couldn't even manage to keep all his limbs attached; at what point would he lose the rest of them? What would be the next thing to go— his conscience, his morals, his hope for the future? When was he going to stop losing?

In the following weeks— abandoning his work, concentration a lost cause— he pleaded with his father to change his mind. He promised to be a better son, to stop meddling with dangerous experiments, to devote himself to the well-being of their village. He threatened to run away and never speak to him again. He alternated between bitterly weeping and irately yelling; he wanted to know just how, exactly, his father arrived at the conclusion that this was a good idea. He did everything he could think to do, but his father was immovable. He refused to change his mind or even explain his reasoning as to why this was “for the best.”

“His highness has been very busy with matters in his own kingdom,” his father said, “but arrangements are being made to have you wed within a fortnight.”

Varian was speechless, dazed. His father didn’t look at him, and, moving like a sleepwalker, he went to his lab and closed the door.

If Hans knew what he’d done, would he still want to go through with this? Varian couldn’t imagine that anyone would want a one-armed husband. He pictured casting off his gloves and revealing the crude prosthesis (which was still awaiting modifications), shocking his father and potential fiancee. Horrified, they would call the whole thing off. Varian would suffer through a stint in an institution— in the mountains somewhere, with a majestic view of the sea— where he would be forced to write his dreams down in a diary and participate in sit-down group therapy and arts and crafts, and then everything would go back to normal.

Who was he kidding? He would hide his mistake for as long as he possibly could... which, if his understanding of wedding nights was to be at all depended upon, would be less than two weeks. After that, well, he would have to figure out something else.

“This is terrible, Ruddiger,” he told the raccoon, who was eyeing the new kitten resentfully as it napped in a patch of sunlight that, until now, he’d never had to share with anyone. “What the hell am I going to do?” 

In the middle of the room, the Oro project loomed, massive, imposing, forgotten about. If he wasn't so wrapped up in his problems, he most likely would have been surprised he hadn't received another messenger from the king, asking for an update. 

He hadn't lied to his dad. His inventions were being bought and sold all over the world; he was making a name for himself. But the materials, the equipment, the maintenance of his workshop, the transportation of his finished products, which had to be treated with utmost care, all cost money. He was broke; for all the profit it brought him, he almost shouldn't bother working at all. 

But he loved science. Alchemy was his life. He couldn't just give it up!

Despondent, he dropped his head onto the tabletop. Phantom pains traveled up and down his arm. He would have to drink more of the pain elixir soon. _Maybe there's a way I can get it to taste better,_ he thought absently. The awful flavor was one of the worst things about having to take it all the time, but sugar caused an explosive reaction with some of the components in it. 

It was the last thing he remembered thinking about before darkness rose up like a tidal wave and swallowed him whole.


	8. Chapter 8

Ever since his father's announcement, time seemed to move at triple its normal speed. One moment, Varian was contemplating packing his things and leaving for good (the idea was ludicrous, of course; how could he abandon his lab, his career— his father, whom, in spite of everything, he still loved? Not to mention that if, at any point in the future, he still planned on modifying his hand, he would need his tools and a good amount of money). The next, he was tugging on a pair of formal gloves to hide his prosthesis during the ceremony. His suit was black. Hans, when he entered his room, was wearing dark blue.

“You're not supposed to be in here,” Varian said, extending an effort to keep his expression neutral.

“Oh, please,” Hans returned genially, “you don't actually believe that, do you?” It was the sort of superstition Hans's mother might buy into— that it was bad luck to see the groom before the wedding— but Hans knew Varian at least well enough to know that he didn’t. “I had to see you,” he went on. “We haven’t been in a room together since the day we met. You look stunning.”

“So do you.”

“Are you nervous?”

“A little.” In truth, he felt hollow, despairing. He kept thinking that, at any moment, a solution would present itself; an opportunity would arise, and he would seize his chance to escape. He’d waited and waited, patiently, for weeks— the clock ticking down, wracking his mind for even the vaguest modicum of a solution— but nothing happened to come up, and all too soon a ship from Besessen had arrived in the harbor to take him to his fate.

In terms of expeditious long-distance transportation, Varian’s scant experience was limited to horse-drawn carriages, hot-air balloons, and the rare killer robot. He’d never been on a sailing vessel of any kind, let alone one as big as the one Hans sent for him. He would have given anything to observe the crew and see how the thing operated— what science was involved— but, to his annoyance, he hadn’t been allowed. The prince’s husband-to-be was expected to remain in the comfort and safety of his room. 

Hans was fixing Varian’s collar, even though it was already perfect. Varian avoided his gaze. His father had insisted on putting his hair up again, so there was no protective curtain to shield his eyes. “Hans,” he began, then faltered. “I have to tell you something.” 

Hans was silent, inviting him to continue. Varian reddened, his heart speeding up. He couldn’t quite find the words to say. 

Hans waited for a long time, then smiled. “It’s okay,” he said reassuringly. “I know you’ve probably never had sex before.” 

It took Varian a moment to process what he’d heard. “What? No.” He’d been about to confess what had happened to his hand. “That's not what—” 

“I mean, you’re what, fifteen? And a bit of a shut-in, from what I hear.” 

“I’m _sixteen_,” Varian corrected defensively, pulling out of Hans’s grasp. “And that’s not what I was going to say.” 

“So you’re not a virgin, then?” 

“No,” Varian huffed, flushing, “I am, but—” 

“So you are? That’s what I thought. You look like one.” 

Varian was momentarily stricken silent; then his voice rose as he started to grow angry. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing.” 

Varian studied Hans through narrowed eyes until he saw the other clearly grow uncomfortable. “I’d better go,” he mumbled, backing towards the door. “For the record, I think it’s cute. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it.” 

“I never said there was,” Varian said icily. An uneasy silence ensued. Hans had his hand on the doorknob and Varian was halfway to feeling victorious when Hans paused and turned back around, meeting his gaze. 

“You're a strange man,” he said. “Strange, but smart. I like that about you.”

“I don't like anything about you,” Varian spat without thinking, and though he didn't yet know whether he was pleased with himself or if he regretted it, he knew right away it was the truth. He expected Hans to fall silent and leave, but, to his surprise, Hans started to smile.

"So this is how it’s going to be?"

Varian said nothing. He was still waiting for Hans to go away. If anyone caught him here, they would both be in trouble.

Hans let go of the doorknob and came towards Varian with a strange look in his eye. Varian's instincts kicked in and he backed away, but before he knew it, Hans was gripping him tightly, painfully, in both hands. Their lips met.

Actually, ‘met’ wasn’t strong enough of a word. ‘Collided,’ perhaps. ‘Crushed together.’ 

_“Mmh—!”_ Varian went completely stiff and still; he could feel bruises popping up where Hans was gripping him._ “Mm!”_

Hans paid him no mind. They parted what felt like a long time later, and Varian, once freed, stumbled away, wiping his mouth. Hans watched him bemusedly. “I know you’re just a peasant,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect much from you in the way of manners. But it would behoove you to keep in mind that, when you speak to me, you’re speaking to a prince. Some deference wouldn’t be out of place.” 

Varian stared at him, robbed of the capacity to speak. He was breathing heavily, as if he’d just sprinted down the hall, and vaguely he was aware that his clothes were now messed up and would have to be fixed. 

Finally, Hans left, closing the door soundlessly behind him. Varian sat down on the bed and stared into space, his mind racing.


	9. Chapter 9

The guests, whose kingdoms of origin ranged from Besessen to Corona to Arendelle, arrived in horse-drawn carriages and were escorted to the ballroom to await the procession. Varian spotted Rapunzel and Eugene arm-in-arm, looking positively ravishing, talking to a couple he didn’t know. He tried to edge past them without being seen, but Rapunzel happened to turn her head, and the next thing he knew she was hugging him so tightly he could scarcely breathe. “You look so handsome!” she squealed. 

“Thanks.” He tried not to wince; her overzealous embrace was hurting his bruises.

“Congratulations, buddy,” Eugene said, shaking his hand jubilantly. “Gosh, married already, huh? It feels like just yesterday you were a snot-nosed little kid, and now—” 

“He’s all grown up!” Rapunzel chimed in, looking like she could almost burst from happiness. “Are you guys gonna have kids? Can we be the godparents? What are you gonna name them? Oh, I’m so excited!” She threw her arms out wide, but this time Varian dodged before she could hug him. 

“I’m glad you guys could make it,” he said, keeping his voice carefully level. “Is there any alcohol around here?” 

A servant passed by carrying a tray with glasses of wine. Varian took two of them. 

“Oh,” Eugene said, “are you gonna do some cool science thing with those?” 

“Yep,” said Varian, and then he downed them both, one after the other. Eugene and Rapunzel stared at him in disbelief, then exchanged glances. 

“Uh, Varian,” Rapunzel said cautiously, “are you feeling okay?” 

“It’s my wedding day,” he answered. “Hey, Eugene, come drink with me.” 

Eugene seemed to debate it. “I didn’t know you drank.” 

“I do a little, sometimes.” As it so happened, Varian had begun to feel symptoms of withdrawal the previous night. All of his elixirs were back in Old Corona, and he had no materials or lab equipment with which to brew more. The best thing he could get to settle his nerves— and dull the phantom pains rampaging up and down his arm— was whatever the guests were being served. “Come on. I'm sure a lot of this stuff's probably expensive, which means it must be really good.” He smiled impishly. “I mean, you're not gonna make me drink alone, are you?”

“Where's Hans?” Rapunzel asked, before Eugene could say anything.

“Still getting ready,” Varian answered. “Eugene?”

Eugene was completely on board by this point. “Okay,” he said, grinning, “what the hell? Blondie, you comin'?”

“No, thanks.” She watched them go. Varian knew what she must be thinking, but he didn't glance back at her. He listened, genuinely interested, as Eugene explained to him that, as a master thief, it had been important to keep his senses sharp at all times, and so he rarely drank in the old days. Now that he was living in the castle with Blondie, alcohol was more readily available, but she didn't drink, so he usually didn't, either. But “it's a special occasion,” he said rakishly, and the two of them clinked glasses. The guests around them cheered as they did so, momentarily drowning out the music of the orchestra. 

“I can't believe my dad's making me do this,” Varian said after some time had passed and cheeks were beginning to turn red. The procession would be starting at any moment, and at any moment a servant would come looking for him to take him to the chapel. “Do you have any idea how inconvenient marriage is going to be to my work?”

“Hold on, hold on.” Not only had Eugene imbibed way less than Varian thus far (watching the kid swallow ounce after ounce, it hadn't taken long for him to go from impressed to concerned), he held it better, too. “Your dad is forcing you to get married? Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Wait. Do you even like Hans?"”

“I like his money,” Varian said waggishly, and started to take another sip, but Eugene put a hand atop his glass, lowering it away from his mouth. 

“Hey, kid, are you okay?” he asked, his voice low, studying him closely. Varian couldn't bring himself to meet his gaze.

“I asked my dad why he wanted me to do this,” he mumbled, “and he wouldn't even tell me. I don't even know how he and Hans—” he hiccuped— “how he and Hans know each other. I don't even know how they met.”

“Your dad wouldn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“Did you ask Hans?”

“No,” Varian said, after a pause. He realized he’d never even thought about it. His father was always trying to protect him, but surely, Hans had no such reason to conceal the truth. If Varian asked him, innocuously, perhaps during a time when he had his guard down, would he tell him?

Eugene was saying something. Varian, who hadn't been listening, had to ask him to repeat himself. “They can't force you to get married,” he said seriously. “It's wrong. Where’s your father?” He scanned the ballroom, frowning. “I want to talk to him.” 

“He couldn’t come.” 

Eugene was stunned. “What?” 

“He couldn’t come,” Varian repeated, lifting his drink, and this time Eugene didn’t react in time to stop him. He tossed it back and set the empty glass down with an air of decisiveness. “He was busy.” 

“You mean your dad’s still back in Old Corona?” Eugene massaged his face as if he had an awful headache. “So let me get this straight. It’s the most important day of your life, and you’re here— in a different kingdom, about to get married— all by yourself?” 

“Look around you,” Varian said, gesturing to the guests, most of whom, if not all, were complete strangers. “There’s people everywhere.” 

“This is ridiculous,” Eugene said. He stood up. “Wait here. Don’t drink any more. I’ll be right back. Don’t serve him anymore,” he told the man holding the wine, giving him a warning look. Then he left, and Varian was alone. 

All of a sudden, for no reason, Varian felt he had to tell Eugene about his arm. Trustworthy, skillful, quick-thinking Eugene; if anyone deserved to know— if anyone would take the news well (after freaking out a little, maybe, but he would keep a secret)— it was him. And then, like he always did (because, despite having been a criminal for the better half of his life, he had a good heart) he would try to help. 

Eugene. Why didn’t Varian think of this earlier? Of _course_ Eugene would help him. Eugene would fix everything. 

He stumbled away from the smell of alcohol and started to push through the crowd, mumbling apologies whenever he bumped into someone, keeping an eye out for a man with dark hair and a blue vest. He was just here. Where did he go? 

Dimly, he was aware of someone making an announcement— he caught the words “his highness,” “chapel,” and “proceed.” Irritated, he ignored them, pushing past people who were now moving in one solid mass towards the doors. “Eugene!” he called, “Eugene!”


	10. Chapter 10

In twenty-six years, Hans was lucky enough to have made love to many princes and princesses, each more beautiful than the last. His parents wanted him to get married, but he wasn't in a hurry; he waited a long time for the right person. When he was seven and the princess of Corona was born, everyone thought he would marry her someday, but then she was kidnapped, so that plan went out the window. After that, he was pretty much free to date whoever he wanted.

Royalty, he quickly found, wasn't his type. They were boring and stuffy and not particularly quick-witted. He preferred someone challenging, someone who could think for themselves— someone powerful, but not so powerful that they couldn't be brought under control. Money was of no interest to him; he had more than enough already. He only really used it to get whatever, or whoever, he wanted, the moment he wanted it.

Varian's gloves were a good example. If the boy only knew what he had to go through to get them, well, perhaps he wouldn't be so impertinent all the time. Hans was eager for the reception to be over. The real fun would start when the sun went down, and they were finally alone. He pictured touching him in all the places he’d never been touched before, making him shiver and cast his eyes down. He wanted to have complete ownership over him. Soon enough, his sharp tongue and utter lack of respect would be a thing of the past. His father had seemed eager enough to get rid of him, and was, at the moment, miles away and in no position to do anything to stop Hans from doing what his hands itched to do— even if Varian asked for his help, which Hans already knew that he wouldn’t.

It was no surprise that the exact thing Hans found interesting about Varian— his volatility, his genius, his soul which was highly susceptible to the blackest, dourest moods, wherein he could be imposed upon to do any horrible, cruel thing to people he once considered friends simply to achieve his own ends— was what motivated his father (his entire kingdom!) to get rid of him. Send him to that strange, eccentric prince, they said, the one that lives near the mountains and the sea; let the child be _his_ problem. Hans even knew for a fact that some of the Coronans (the boy’s father, for example, as well as the king, queen, and princess) had somehow managed to rationalize the situation. The fresh air, a change of scenery, they assured themselves, would do Varian good. He would smile more and stay shut up in his lab less, would take a break from inhaling the fumes of deadly chemicals and burying his nose in books of forbidden knowledge. Instead, he would go sailing, or riding, or, someday— if things went well— put that clever head of his to good use raising a family.

Not to mention (they told themselves, at least) untold peril was on its way toward Corona, growing ever closer by the day. It would be safer for Varian to be far away when it finally arrived; almost just as importantly, it would be safer for everyone else, too. The last time peril came to Corona, the boy went a bit mad. No one wanted to risk that happening again.

All told, it was best to get rid of him.

Hans knew more than any of them, of course. Varian wasn’t interested in getting happy, or having kids, or even returning to his dark days of madness. He was interested only in his experiments, and Hans would be more than willing to indulge him... if, of course, he behaved himself, and if Hans deemed his work useful. He’d have to stop making transactions with other kingdoms and make Besessen his one and only priority. Hans had seen the war machines the boy was capable of building. He thought they could use a few upgrades. He figured Varian could be persuaded, one way or another, to acquiesce.

“You know,” said a voice behind him, “I knew a Prince named Hans once. Real scummy guy. Last I heard, he was shoveling manure in iron shackles.”

Hans turned around. It was Eugene, the ex-con, Princess Rapunzel's boyfriend— Hans's own usurper, had things gone the way they were originally supposed to. “How did you get in here?”

“I was invited.”

“No, I mean, how did you get in my room?”

“I'm pretty sneaky.” Eugene grinned. “You may not know this, but I used to be something of a thief.”

Hans studied him coolly. He expected it would do no good to inform him that he wasn't allowed in here. “What do you want?”

“Isn't Quirin in attendance? I looked all over for him. The procession is beginning— he's going to miss it.”

“He declined his invitation. Was there anything else?”

“Yeah,” Eugene said impudently, “how old are you? You know the kid's just sixteen, right? I mean, you _did_ know that, right?” 

“Get to the point, Mr... Rider, was it?” 

“Fitzherbert,” Eugene corrected, his tone carrying more of a bite than one would reasonably expect it could while pronouncing the name “Fitzherbert.” “And my point is, Varian doesn’t want to marry you. He told me so himself.” He took a step forward, pointing a finger menacingly. “Now, I don’t know what the situation is, but I do know that Coronan law states that any individual under its jurisdiction about to be forced into marriage against his or her will falls under the protection of the king and—” 

“Eugene!” 

It was Rapunzel. She flew to his side and seized his arm, her green eyes wide with worry. “What are you doing in here?” 

“Ah, Princess Rapunzel,” Hans greeted her warmly. “Your gentleman friend and I were just having a polite chat.” 

Rapunzel tugged Eugene towards the door. “Let’s go.”

Eugene resisted. “Blondie, Varian's in big trouble. His father is forcing him to get married to _this_ piece of work—” he gestured to Hans, who smirked— “against his will.”

“Your Highness,” Hans said to Rapunzel in the silence that ensued, “would you care to set the record straight?”

Rapunzel was quiet for a while. “It's not against his will,” she said, not meeting Eugene's gaze. “Not technically.” 

“What?” Eugene stared at her, looking for any trace of humor; when he found none, consternation filled his gaze, and he pulled his arm free, backing away. “What do you mean?”

Rapunzel sighed, massaging her head as if stricken by a sudden headache. “Eugene—” 

“No, I’m serious. What do you mean, ‘not technically?’ What are you talking about? You knew about this?” He was incredulous. “Rapunzel, the kid doesn't want to get married. He's sitting upstairs, drinking like the world is ending— his dad's not here, he's terrified— and you're saying... what? You knew?”

“You don't understand.”

He took her hands, gently, and looked into her eyes. “Then explain it to me.” 

She did. By the time she was done, Eugene had nothing to say. Hans was studying himself in the mirror, eliminating imperfections with a flick here and an adjustment there. “I hope you’ll still be joining us for the reception.” 

Rapunzel stared at Eugene, her eyes begging him to forgive her, but he couldn’t— not yet. But he couldn’t get mad at her, either. 

So, “don’t count on it” was all he said, and then he left the room.


	11. Chapter 11

The happy couple stood face-to-face at the altar. As the priest droned on and on, Hans whispered through a smile, “I hear you’ve been drinking. Is something the matter?”

“No.”

“You look lovely. No bouquet?”

“I had one, originally,” Varian whispered coldly, “but it caught fire and burned to ashes.”

“What an unfortunate accident.”

“I would describe a lot of what's happening today as unfortunate.” Varian stole a glance towards the audience. They were all looking at him, most smiling, some weeping, but there was no sign of Eugene or Rapunzel anywhere. His heart thudded. Time was running out. Where could they be?

“I want to apologize for my earlier behavior,” Hans was whispering.

“No need.”

“But I feel terrible.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

“Because I love you, of course. I've loved you since the moment we met.”

Varian felt himself grow angry. If there was one thing he hated more than being betrayed, it was being lied to. “Listen. I don't know what you want from me, but—”

“I do,” said Hans, and suddenly the whole room was quiet and everyone was waiting. Of all the hundreds of thousands of things Varian wanted to say at that moment, “I do” was not one, but he forced his lips to move and then Hans was kissing him, gently this time, because everyone was watching.

At the reception, the two of them were expected to dance. “I never got a chance to show you how this was done,” Hans said as he lead Varian out into the middle of the room. “What ever happened that night? You weren't pretending to be sick just to get away from me, were you?”

“I would have if I'd thought of it,” Varian said, and as he spoke, the music started. Hans guided him along. Their hands were entwined, their chests pressed together; with a jolt, Varian realized Hans could probably feel just how wildly his heart was beating. “Why are you doing this?” he whispered, his neck and ears red, looking anywhere except for Hans’s face.

“Doing what?” 

_“This. _Wouldn't you rather marry a princess or something? I mean, why me, when you know I don't even like you?”

Hans studied him as if greatly amused. “Didn't your father explain anything?”

Varian scrutinized the gown of a woman nearby— blue, flower-embroidered, expensive, beautiful. “He explained it was best if he didn't explain.” 

“I spoke to a friend of yours earlier.”

Varian frowned, startled less by the evasion than by where this was going. “Who?” he asked suspiciously.

“Tall, dark hair, arrogant smile...”

“Eugene,” he realized, forgetting to keep his voice down. “He talked to you? What did he say?”

“He seemed to labor under the belief that you were being forced into this union, and that, in reality, you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“You must know perfectly well I’m only doing this because of my father,” Varian said. “What I want to know is why _you’re_ doing this.”

“I love you.” 

“You’re lying.”

“You don’t believe me?” 

“Where’s Eugene?” 

“Now, Varian, if I tell you that, you’ll go running off to join him, and how would that look? You just got married, but you’re going to leave your husband standing _alone_ on the dance floor to do... what? Gallivant with a known thief?” 

“It’s a criminal offense to call Eugene a thief,” Varian said automatically. “He was royally pardoned. They could throw you in prison.” 

Hans laughed. “Please. I’m not a peasant like you. Anyway, once a criminal, always a criminal.” 

“Oh, yeah?" Varian smiled exultantly. "So I guess that logic applies to me, too, huh? Or didn’t you know I’ve committed numerous acts of treason?” 

“Know?” Hans repeated, and something in the way he said it— something in his eyes— made Varian’s smile vanish as a shiver ran down his spine. “Goodness, darling, why else are we here?”

Varian failed to retort. Hans took advantage of the opportunity to kiss him again. All around them, people clapped. It was only with the furthest possible extension of his self-control that Varian was able to resist the urge to yell, “shut up!”

The rest of the evening was a blur. Hans made a toast, people danced, music permeated the air like a poisonous mist, and Varian swallowed glass after glass of wine. He kept an eye out for his friends, but they seemed to have vanished into thin air; it wasn’t until well past midnight that he realized they’d left. He gripped the edge of the nearest piece of furniture as dizziness threatened to bowl him over. The words circled in his head over and over, nonstop: they left, they left, they left.

Then he thought back to the last time he’d seen them, realized it had been before the procession, and felt a fresh wave of nausea wash over him as the horrible truth sank in: they’d left well before the ceremony was over; no, they’d left well before it had begun. And there he’d stood, foolishly waiting, thinking they could help— that they would help— that they even cared. 

He was married. He said it aloud, to test how it sounded. “I’m married.” No one heard him; he could barely hear himself. He said it louder: “I’m married.” Somehow, it refused to sink in.

His drink was empty. Someone had their arms around him and their mouth to his ear. “Come with me,” they said, and feeling hollow, Varian let himself be pulled away. The lights of the ballroom fell away behind him, and suddenly it was dark and quiet, and his back was against something hard, and Hans was kissing him. 

He was really drunk. He struggled. Hans seized his hands and smothered them with little adoring kisses, then pulled off his gloves. His eyes widened, and he lifted Varian’s prosthesis into the moonlight. “What’s this?” 

“It’s my hand, you moron,” Varian mumbled, his words teetering and bumping into each other, as intoxicated as he was. Hans was speechless for a long time; he seemed to study the prosthesis, turning it over, running his fingertips along its smooth metal surface. Meanwhile, it was all Varian could do to stay standing up. 

“Your dad never mentioned this,” Hans said finally. 

“He doesn’t know.”

“How could he not know? You’re his son.” Varian said nothing. Finally, Hans smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t tell.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kind feedback. I am now accepting suggestions about how Hans should die.
> 
> This work now features updated tags! Let me know if there’s any I missed.

The following morning, Varian was seen by the royal physician, who examined his arm as he lay inert in bed. Hans, fully dressed and not the slightest bit hungover, sat beside him and held his hand.

“His Highness sustained a very serious injury,” the physician observed. “You say he refused medical attention?”

“I was led to believe the princess of Corona took him to receive urgent care, but apparently, I was mistaken. Will he be alright?”

“The arm is healed. The treatment, such as it was, was amateur to say the least, but there is nothing more to be done.” The physician lowered Varian’s arm, gently, back to the mattress. Varian groaned softly but lacked the energy to move or talk. Hans kissed his knuckles, gazing worriedly at him.

“He looks ill.”

“He had too much to drink last night. In the future, someone will keep a closer eye on him, although it will hardly be necessary. I doubt he’s been to many celebrations of such great magnitude before; when he wakes up, he will have learned his lesson.”

“I insist upon further treatment. He’s my husband and this country’s sovereign; you will help him.”

“Very well. I can prescribe an elixir to treat headaches and nausea. Meanwhile, be sure that he doesn’t try to get out of bed or exert himself in any way. As soon as he feels up to it, he will begin therapy to reduce any pain in his arm.”

Hans thanked and dismissed him. Varian was pale as a ghost and damp with sweat; he’d seen more excitement last night than he was likely to remember. Still, he was beautiful. Hans admired the angles of his face— chin, eyebrows, jawline, nose— and looked forward to the prospect of remaining here with him all day. He would be docile enough when he woke up; perhaps he wouldn't object to a few kisses, a light embrace, a murmur of affection. His sickness put a damper on their honeymoon for sure, but at least Hans still got to take his virginity earlier that morning. If he looked closely, he could still make out the remnants of tear tracks on his face, and no doubt the sheets (which had been discreetly removed before the doctor arrived) were like a crime scene. It made him swell with pride just to think of it.

Varian opened his eyes at midday. Hans watched curiously as, still half-unconscious, he felt clumsily at the sheets, as if looking for something. “Ruddiger,” he murmured. “Where...?”

He was looking for his pet raccoon, Hans realized with faint amusement. “Good morning, my love.”

Varian took a few seconds to focus on him, then suddenly seemed to remember where he was. He groaned and rolled over. “Go away.” He tried to pull the blankets over his head, then, with a jolt, sat up, wide awake, staring in horror at the stump of his arm. “Where’s my hand?”

“The doctor gave you medicine for your hangover,” Hans said, ignoring his question. “Shall I get it for you?”

“My hand—where’d you put my hand?” He tried to move the sheets and get out of bed, but Hans pushed him back down.

“Doctor’s orders,” he said. “You’re staying right there.”

Varian glared at him. “I’m fine.”

Hans rang the bell for the servant. When she arrived at the door, he told her to bring a tray with lunch— something light, because Prince Varian was under the weather. When he turned back around, the bed was empty, and Varian was crawling on the floor. When he found his prosthesis, instead of putting it on, he hugged it to his chest like a teddy bear, curling up near the wall with his chin tucked into his knees.

“I want to go home,” he said after a very long silence.

“So soon?”

Varian ducked his head, hiding his face beneath a curtain of hair. The blue silk cord with which it’d been tied for most of the previous evening and up until around sunrise when Hans had removed it was around here, somewhere, but neither one of them made any sort of move to look for it. “I want to go home,” he repeated. Hans rolled his eyes.

“You idiot, this is your home. You’re royalty now. No one can tell you to go anywhere or do anything—except me, of course. If that doesn’t work for you, you might as well drown yourself in the sea, because you’re not getting out of it. Your dad doesn’t want you, your so-called ‘friends’ have just been waiting for a chance like this ever since you tried to lay waste to all of them—”

“I want to go home!”

“Don’t you get it? You are home.”

Varian didn’t argue, didn’t even look up. He tucked his face into his arms and shook his head. “I want my dad.”

“Stop moping. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Don’t tell me you’d rather go back to being some worthless peasant?” Varian didn’t respond. Casually, Hans crossed the room to the window and flicked open the curtains. “They’re late,” he murmured. “It’s my fault. I made sure they were careful with your things. I know how breakable they are, especially that machine you’ve been working on…”

Varian raised his head. “What things? You mean _my_ things? They’re bringing them here?”

“Well, of course. You’re not going to travel all the way to Old Corona every day to work, are you? They’re in the process of moving your lab to the castle as we speak.”

Varian leapt to his feet, his eyes filled with horror. “You sent your men into my lab?”

“Well,” said Hans, surprised; he’d thought Varian would be happy to hear this news. “Yes. I assumed…”

“No,” Varian cried, “no, no, no! They can’t go in there! Do you have any idea how volatile that equipment is? I happen to be in possession of a glass bottle of the same amber that almost killed me and my dad a year ago. If anyone drops it—if they make _one wrong move—”_

His despondency was gone, replaced by pure fervent outrage. Hans resisted smiling. “Perhaps we should warn them.”

“You _think?”_ Varian half-shouted. It was at that point he realized he was naked. He turned beet red and yanked a fistful of the sheets to cover himself. “Where are my clothes?” he asked shrilly.

“Being laundered,” Hans replied, thinking Varian could be awfully entertaining if one caught him at the right moment, in the right way.

“Well, have someone bring them here—or give me yours! I have to go contain your stupid mistake before we’re all killed.”

Hans could barely suppress his laughter. “Yes, darling.”


	13. Chapter 13

Varian flew down the stairs with his shirt untucked and his hair disheveled, fastening the straps of his prosthesis over his sleeve as he went. A servant dogged his heels, laden with a pair of shoes, a hairbrush, a jacket, and a saucer with a cup of tea. She wheedled him to stop, but he paid her no attention.

Hans was waiting at the side entrance, where the contents of his lab were being carried inside. Boxes of chemicals, books, pens, scrolls, ink, rulers, diagrams, measuring cups and spoons, hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and dried herbs were transported by hand, while bigger things—like the Oro project—had been loaded onto carts and wagons.

“Be careful with that!” Varian seized a box from a passing stranger. He lifted a tiny phial of purple liquid out and demanded, “Do you know what this is? If a drop of this potion gets into the soil, then our crops will fail for a thousand years.” Someone walked past him carrying a stack of books topped with a human skull; he seized it away from them. “Don’t touch that. Hey—” He dropped the box and the skull at his feet and ran to someone else. “Put that down!”

Hans watched him flit from here to there, demanding his things be treated with greater respect, explaining in clear and insistent tones exactly what each item was and why it was dangerous. The servants stared at him, mystified; they had no chance of understanding a word he was saying; many of them had never even heard of alchemy.

“The yellow chemical in these phials undergoes an explosive reaction when brought in contact with oxygen,” he told them. “So whatever you do, don’t break them. They won’t hurt anyone, but they’re really handy and I only have like four left.”

“What’s oxygen?” someone asked. Varian rolled his eyes. “Air,” he explained impatiently, “don’t let it touch air!”

His work desk had been disassembled for easier transport. Out of the dog cart it had been loaded into, something gray and furry shot like a dart. A woman screamed. Varian lit up, forgetting his worries briefly. “Ruddiger!” Dropping a handful of notebooks, he held out his arms, and the raccoon leapt into them. Varian laughed as the raccoon nuzzled his face in an almost human way. “I missed you, buddy.”

Hans observed all this from the sidelines, drinking tea. He was amused to note that the servant that had been assigned to Varian was still following him around, making passes at him with the hairbrush, trying to get him to stand still so she could finish dressing him. The shirt he’d been given was perfectly tailored, crisp and white, and he looked rather smart in it. “Darling,” Hans called, raising his teacup, “don’t you want to take a break? You haven't eaten all morning.”

Varian glared at him. “I’m fine.” He put Ruddiger on his shoulders, then, with a grunt, hoisted himself up onto the wagon that held the Oro project, even while it was still moving. With a flourish, he removed the tarp covering it, then proceeded to examine it for damage, cooing over it as if it was his child.

“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” He hugged it, pressing his cheek to the cold, hard metal. “Daddy’s sorry he had to leave. Don’t worry, everything's okay now. I promise.”

Hans was irritated. So his husband was capable of expressing affection—who knew? He doubted he wouldn’t have to go through a great deal of work to get Varian to talk to him like that. Imagine, one’s spouse valuing one less than an inanimate object.

He set his empty teacup down on a stack of books, then navigated his way through the crowd and climbed, somewhat awkwardly, into the wagon. “Why are you so into science, anyway? I mean. I doubt you got it from your father.”

Varian answered huffily, without looking at him. “Science has always been an interest of mine. My dad never really cared for the topic himself, but he was always very supportive.” Kneeling, he made some adjustments with a wrench someone had been carrying at some point. “Let’s just consider ourselves lucky that we’re all still in one p—”

A little ways ahead of them, something exploded with the force of a firecracker. The wagon lurched to a sudden stop. Hans lost his balance and fell forward, landing smack on top of Varian, who, having fallen backward, lay disoriented beneath him. 

People were shouting; a thin yellow fog hung in the air. “Dammit,” Varian said, rubbing his head, “I told them to be careful with that yellow stuff.” He glared at Hans, who was so close, he could feel his breath on his face. “What in the world compelled you to do this, anyway? Do you want people to get hurt?”

Hans scowled. “Of course not.”

“Well?”

“It was a gift—a surprise—for the man I love,” Hans said, feeling ridiculous to have to defend himself to Varian, of all people. “And if you don’t like it, then, I’ll… I’ll have it all sent back!”

“No!”

There was a pause, and then Hans kissed him. Varian made a muffled sound and tried to wriggle away, but Hans seized him by the wrists and pinned him down securely. The air smelt strangely burnt, and people were shouting back and forth as they tried to contain what had happened.

“Is everyone all right?”

“We’re all fine here. Where are the princes?”

Varian moaned as Hans sank his tongue deep into his mouth. Something warm and fuzzy brushed past Hans’s face, and suddenly he reeled back, clutching his cheek.

The raccoon—it had bitten him.

“Ruddiger!” Varian held out his arms, and the raccoon flew into them. It stared Hans down, baring its teeth and growling.

Hans gingerly touched his cheek, then looked at his fingertips. Smears of red blood stained the skin.

Varian seemed to sense that he was in big trouble. He scrambled out of the wagon and backed a considerable distance away, holding the animal close to his chest. “He didn’t mean it,” he said immediately. “He’s just cranky from the trip.”

“That thing is your pet?” Hans asked coldly. “It attacked me.”

“He’s well behaved,” Varian protested. “He was just trying to help me. He thought I was in danger!”

Hans got down from the wagon. A servant rushed to dab the blood from his face. He waved them away. “That creature is not welcome in my castle,” he said. “See to it that our paths never cross again.”

Varian was stunned. He watched Hans walk away. Abandoning his lab equipment, he followed him into the castle. “You don’t mean that,” he said. “Ruddiger’s my friend. I can’t just—”

“He’s an enemy of this kingdom.”

Varian laughed. “You’re being ridiculous!”

“Why is it still here?”

“Hans—”

“Varian!” Hans whirled around and faced him; Varian went rigid and silent, his smile quickly vanishing. “Either you send him back to Old Corona, or I will personally see to it that he is served up in a stew.”

“But…”

“End of story!”

Hans turned and left him standing there. Behind him, his stuff was still being carried into the subterranean floors which would function as his labs, but he no longer cared about that.

“Your Highness?”

The servant had to repeat herself several times before Varian realized she was addressing him. In her hand was an envelope with a seal he recognized.

“A letter from Corona,” she said.


	14. Chapter 14

Varian carried a cup of tea into the sitting room. Hans, reading by the window, didn’t look up until he felt a dab of something cold, wet, and intensely burning against his cheek. He seized Varian’s wrist and stared him down. Varian smiled meekly.

“It’s alcohol,” he explained. “It’ll keep the wound from getting infected.” He offered the cup of tea. “I brought you this.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping them move your stuff in?”

“I’m taking a break.”

Hans looked at the tea but didn’t take it. “Being nice to me won’t make me change my mind about the raccoon.”

“I know, I just… thought I’d apologize.”

“Since when do you ever apologize to me?” Hans studied him suspiciously. “Are you dying?”

Varian put the teacup on the settee and sat down. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot. I want to make it up to you.” He fidgeted, studying the intricate pattern of the carpet. “If I’m going to be staying here, I don’t want the two of us to constantly be at odds. Even if I can’t bring myself to…” he faltered. “Even if this—all this—was just because of my dad, I really think we should still be friends.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Varian sighed again, rolling his eyes. “Fine.” He stood up. “I’ll just—”

“Sit down,” Hans commanded. Varian sat. Hans put down his book and picked up the tea; he took a sip and made a face. “You made this? It’s awful.”

Varian smiled apologetically, rubbing his neck. “I don’t know how to make tea.”

“You can make killer robots and discover new elements, but you can’t brew a simple cup of tea?”

Varian didn’t answer. Hans drained the cup, then picked up his book. There was a brief, awkward silence.

“Hans,” Varian said, not looking at him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mmm.”

“Why did you marry me?”

Hans answered without thinking. “Well, from what it looked like, no one else was going to, and any idiot would realize that someone like you could be quite useful to someone like me.” He frowned, as if he didn’t know why he just said that. Before he could think too much about it, Varian pressed, “useful, how?”

“I’ve seen what you’re capable of,” answered Hans, who was now staring at the empty cup of tea. Was he mistaken, or was there a faint blue glow among the dregs? “You’re a force to be reckoned with. Your father and the rulers of Corona were foolish enough to be willing to go to any lengths necessary to get rid of you, but I’m smart enough to realize that it’s better to have you on my side.”

“How did you meet my father?”

“I was introduced. King Frederic and Queen Arianna are long-time friends of mine, ever since I was betrothed to their daughter—back before she was kidnapped, that is. They contacted me and informed me of a problem they had that they thought I could solve.” He paused. “What did you put in the tea?”

“Truth serum,” Varian answered casually. He pulled a notebook and pencil out of his pocket and started to take notes. “I found it in one of the boxes while I was looking for something to heal your wound with. Isn’t it funny how good intentions play out?” He smiled, and a shiver ran down Hans’s spine. “Certainly ironic, at least.”

Hans stood to leave. He was halfway to the door when there was a bang and a puff of pink smoke, and then his feet were trapped in a strange, gooey compound. He couldn’t move. Heart hammering, he struggled, but the stuff was stronger than it looked and had no give to it at all; he lost balance and fell to his knees.

Behind him, Varian laughed. “See, I thought you would try to run away. Don’t worry,” he added, “I’m not going to hurt you. All I want is the truth.” He pushed one of the chairs across the room so he could sit in front of Hans and speak to him face-to-face. “Now, where were we?” He tapped the pencil against his chin as Hans seethed in outrage. “Ah, yes, a ‘problem.’ I take it that’s where I come in?”

“They were right,” Hans said. “You really are dangerous.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Like, do you really love me, or are you just saying it as some sort of… power move?”

“It’s a power move,” Hans confessed. “Although, I must admit, I’ve grown quite fond of you over the last few days. Your eyes have a strange effect on me.” He blushed, something Varian had never seen him do before. Rather than feel amused, however, he felt himself grow uncomfortable.

“Why did you have my lab moved to the castle?”

“I was going to have you develop advanced military technology with which I planned to destroy my opponents and, eventually, conquer the world.”

There was a brief silence wherein the only sound was the scrawling of pencil on paper. “I should’ve brought the phonograph,” Varian muttered, mostly to himself. “But then, I’m sure you won’t mind repeating all this. The amount of serum I gave you will last for thirty-six hours at least.”

Hans was aghast. “Thirty-six hours?” He longed to grab the impudent boy and beat the ever-loving shit out of him, but, frustratingly, he was just out of reach.

“Tell me more about the king and queen. What did they ask of you?”

“When you committed treason,” Hans said through clenched teeth, “you should have been executed. But they took mercy, and you escaped. They’re a couple of fools… but you’re not much better. Redemption is not a thing so easily obtained. You think you can do what you did, and then just go back to the way things were? Wrong! You may have gotten your father back, but you’re just as lethal as ever. All of Corona lives in fear of the great and powerful Varian. King Frederic wanted to have you imprisoned for life. Queen Arianna wished to have you shipped to a sanatorium.”

Varian had stopped writing; there was a funny look on his face, as if he doubted his own ears. But the truth serum was one hundred percent effective, and there was no question that Hans was telling the truth. “But, Princess Rapunzel…”

“Princess Rapunzel wanted you to be free. I imagine she still considers you a friend, in spite of what she did to you.” He smiled. “She’s nothing but a silly, sheltered, witless—”

“Get back to the point.”

“The king and queen offered me your hand in marriage.”

“But what about my dad? They would need my dad’s blessing to—”

Hans laughed. “Your dad is more terrified of you than anyone else on earth. He was happy to hand you over. Oh, I’m sure he told himself it was for the best— ‘better than the dungeons,’ and all that. But you should’ve heard the pitch he gave me. Talented boy, brave, honest, pure of heart. I inquired of the rumors that you were dangerously insane. They ended up paying me a good amount of money to take you off their hands.”

“How much money?”

Hans named the sum and Varian wrote it down. “Was all this kept a secret from Rapunzel?”

“For a short time. From what I understand, they explained it to her eventually. I think she managed to talk herself into believing that you and I would eventually fall in love.” He paused. “And, I must say, she was almost right. You’re lovely, you know. That part was never a lie.”

“What were you going to do if I refused to build your machines?”

“Kill you, probably, although I doubted it would come to that. I have ways of getting what I want from people.”

“And now that I know your secrets, what are you going to do to me once you’re free?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Hans said, a strange smile on his face. “Not like I can have you running around talking about it, can I?”

“If I run away, will you send your guards after me?”

“Of course.”

“Will their orders be to kill me, or to bring me back alive so that you can do the honors yourself?”

“I would kill you myself.”

“From the moment I leave this room, how much time will I have before they start to chase me?”

“About five minutes.”


	15. Chapter 15

Varian ripped down the hallway, turned a corner, and almost ran smack-dab into Hans’s mother. She stared at him curiously. Her hair fell in long, golden ringlets down to the center of her back, and her gown was a shade of pink so pale, it was almost white.

“Hello, dear,” she said in a dreamy voice. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” She looked around, blinking long, blonde eyelashes. “Where’s Hansel?”

“Oh—uh—” Varian thought wildly. “Hans is… reading. He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“I see.” She floated past him, humming vacantly. Varian stepped in front of her, holding his arms out wide. “Don’t go that way!” She was headed straight for the room where Hans was still trapped. “Uh, I mean— Hans is… in the garden. Why don’t you join him?”

“Join who?” she asked mildly as Varian grabbed her hand and pulled her down the hall.

“I’ll have the servants bring you some tea.” His voice cracked on the last word; he was beginning to panic. The clock was ticking on his escape, and here he was, wasting precious seconds dealing with Hans’s insane mother.

She was oblivious to his distress and drifted along as if in a daze. “Where’s Hansel?”

He opened the nearest door and stuck his head in. It was a broom closet. Good enough, he thought, and ushered the queen inside. “Right this way, Your Majesty. Hans will be here in just a sec.”

“What a lovely room.” She went in, and Varian shut the door behind her. She wouldn’t be able to figure out the doorknob; someone would have to come along and let her out. He felt sorry for her, but right now, he had more pressing things on his mind.

Behind him, people were shouting in angry voices. It seemed Hans had been found.

Downstairs, the last of the servants were arranging things on the shelves. Varian snatched phials almost indiscriminately and threw them into his bag, where his scarf, apron, gloves, and goggles were already waiting. He recognized a mostly full bottle of pain elixir, uncorked it, and downed the whole thing. Then he threw the bottle over his shoulder. It smashed to pieces, frightening the female workers; they screamed; Varian ignored them.

“Ruddiger!”

The raccoon materialized at his call, attaching himself to his shoulders. He’d been more obedient than usual since his run-in with Hans. Varian shoved a few more things into his bag and sprinted into the hallway.

“There he is!”

He whirled around. A group of guards was running towards him, swords raised. No, no, no, he thought desperately. How am I already out of time?

He threw a handful of glass phials. They broke against the ground, and thick, purple smoke filled the hallway. He ran. No one chased him— probably they were too busy choking on toxic gas. It wouldn't kill them, but it would slow them down, at least long enough for him to get to the exit. It was the type of trick he hadn't used since his fugitive days.

Stone turned to dirt under his feet. This path, he knew, led into town. It was the most obvious route to take, and he wouldn't be able to get to the end of it before they caught up with him (especially if, as he knew would be the case, they were on horseback), but right now it was the only route he had. He peered into his bag as he ran at breakneck speed, his hair flying in the wind. Green stuff, yellow stuff, blue stuff, pink stuff.

It wasn’t enough.

He stopped dead. Ruddiger jumped down from his shoulders and darted ahead of him, then turned and made several yappy noises, tail bushy and eyes wide, as if to say, _what are you waiting for? Run!_

Varian knelt and took out his notebook. His hands were shaking so badly, he could scarcely use them. By the time he'd written what he wanted to say, the earth was shaking with the rhythm of hoofbeats.

They're coming, he thought, they're coming. “Ruddiger,” he said, his voice high and strange; he held out the notebook. “Bring this to my dad in Corona. Go!” he cried when Ruddiger didn’t move. “Hurry. I’ll hold them off.” 

The raccoon jumped into his arms and dug his claws in, refusing to leave him behind. “No, Ruddiger,” Varian shouted, peeling him off. “Bad! I can’t go with you. Now, this is important. Do you understand?” He brandished the notebook again. “You need to take this to my father.” His blue eyes turned pleading. “I’m counting on you, alright?” 

Ruddiger didn’t move for a split moment. Then he seized the notebook in his teeth, turned tail, and shot off like a bullet. 

Varian stood as the guards surrounded him. His bag was open at his feet, and his hands, still trembling, were full of glass phials of all shapes, colors and sizes. 

“Stay back,” he shouted, his heart thundering so fiercely it hurt. “Don’t come any closer.”

Several guards dismounted and drew their weapons. “Your Highness,” one said, in what was almost a gentle tone, “we have orders to accompany you back to the castle.”

“No!” He shook his head, his eyes wild with fear. “I’m going home. Don’t try to stop me, or I _will_ hurt you.” He raised a handful of phials as if to throw them. His opponents reacted as if afraid, backing away a few steps, murmuring amongst themselves. They seemed not to know why they had been told to capture their kingdom’s own prince; furthermore, from the way they eyed him, it was evident that they knew exactly who he was—what he was— and the things he’d done.

In that moment, it was impossible to tell who was more afraid: the guards or Varian.

Varian took a step back. Stay away, he started to say again, but suddenly he was flat on his face and his hands were empty, the phials, unbroken, rolling away from him. His head hurt; what happened? He could only assume someone had snuck up and attacked him from behind. He tried to get to his feet, but what felt like a dozen people were suddenly on top of him, grabbing him. He felt a pair of shackles close around his wrists— an all-too-familiar sensation. He kicked out furiously. “No!” he screamed. “Let me go!”

“Shut up, Var,” said a voice Varian knew; he froze, his eyes opening wide, and craned his neck to try and get a glimpse of her. He saw a flash of blue hair, a pair of pretty pink lips, an hourglass figure clothed in black. 

The guards dragged him, struggling, to his feet.

“Back to the castle,” Cassandra ordered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of y'all are dying to know what was in the letter. I promise I didn’t forget about it— it’ll be revealed soon! Meanwhile, I’m enjoying all your guesses, many if not all of which are wrong. 
> 
> Thanks so much for all the positive feedback!


	16. Chapter 16

“They told me I’d find you here.” Cassandra entered the sitting room, followed by a pair of guards, each of whom had a firm grip on Varian. His gaze was despondent, and he offered no resistance, as if he knew it would do him no good and was unwilling to expend the effort.

Hans was still on the floor, trapped in the pink goop. “Cassandra.” He appeared nonplussed and ignored Varian as if he wasn’t even there. “What are you doing in Besessen?”

“You mean besides testing my suspension of disbelief?” She gestured to Varian. “Please tell me that this is not the ‘secret weapon’ you were talking about.”

“He may not look like much, but I assure you, he’s very—”

“Oh, believe me, I _know_ what he is.” As she spoke, she rummaged through Varian’s bag, dropping its contents (bottles of chemicals, _Flynn Rider_ book, goggles, pencil, more bottles of chemicals) on the floor until she found what she was looking for: a small phial of white powder, which she sprinkled on the pink goo holding Hans in place. It dissolved, and he stood up, brushing off his clothes and smoothing his hair with an air of dignity. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” She corked the bottle and put it back in the bag. “He used the truth serum, didn’t he?”

Hans glowered at her. “Yes.” As she chose a comfortable sofa, he approached Varian, slowly. Varian held his gaze, though his instincts were screaming at him to run. Of course, he couldn’t have obeyed them if he wanted to.

He’d never been hit before. His father wasn’t that sort, and he was never one to pick fights— at least, not ones that involved fists, because he knew he could never win. He spent most of his time in his lab; not much room for confrontation. 

Hans smacked him. He didn't even see it coming. His head swiveled, pain lit up his cheek, and stars swam before his eyes. Hans seized his jaw, forcing him to meet his gaze. “Not so clever now, are you?” he said, then smacked him again, harder this time.

Cassandra had picked up the _Flynn Rider_ book and was flipping idly through it. “I can’t believe people actually read this garbage.”

Varian was bleeding— he could taste it. Hot tears blurred his vision as Hans held the lower part of his face in a viselike grip, his eyes wild as if he wanted more than anything in the world to kill him, right where they stood, with his bare hands. “Cassandra,” he said through clenched teeth, “I am in your debt for returning my husband to me, but perhaps you would be willing to give us a moment alone?” 

She scoffed and flipped a page. “Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do to him?” 

“I’m afraid that’s a family matter.” 

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “You can’t kill him,” she said. “We need him. You can’t think of one single way he can be of use to us?” 

Hans turned to stare at her incredulously. “The moment I let him into his lab, he’s going to destroy us all without remorse! He knows the truth now. He’s of no use to anyone.” 

“Are you really that unimaginative? I thought you had—” she made sarcastic air quotes with her fingers— “‘ways of getting what you want from people.’” 

Hans paused, mulling over her words. Varian was motionless in his grasp. The guards stared straight ahead and said nothing; one would almost think they were used to this sort of thing. 

“We need a way to control him,” Hans murmured, almost to himself. Cassandra rolled her eyes, tossing the book aside. 

“Duh. The only question is, how?” 

Varian gathered his resolve. “Cassandra,” he managed, his eyes begging her for help. “Please—” 

“Shut up,” Hans ordered. “Don’t talk to her.” To Cassandra, he snapped, “well, I’m open to suggestions, clearly.” 

“Have you considered a magical solution to the problem? There’s something called the Wand of Oblivium.” 

All too familiar with the magical artifact, Varian felt a fresh stab of fear. However, Hans spoke, surprising both him and Cass.

“I’m not erasing his memories. We’ve been through a lot together.” He smiled strangely, brushing Varian’s hair back so that he flinched. “I want him to remember.” 

“Seriously?” she rolled her eyes again. “You’re going to turn down this perfect solution just so he can remember— what? Your first date? Your first kiss?” 

“I don’t need your magical remedies. I’ll find a way to deal with him on my own.” He ran his thumb over a painful spot on Varian’s face, pressing down hard; the boy yelped and squirmed, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. “For god’s sake,” Hans murmured, “I would think I could control my own husband.” 

Cassandra stared out of the window at the darkening sky, where a pale circle of the moon was just visible. “There’s one more thing we can do,” she sighed, “besides erase his memories. It’s a simple hypnotism spell. Once he’s under, he’ll do whatever you say. He’d even kill his own father. Hell, he’d kill _himself_ if you told him to.” 

Hans was silent for a long time, wherein Cass didn’t interrupt his train of thought, and the only sound was that of Varian sniffling quietly. “No,” he said finally. 

Cassandra stood up, incredulous. “No? What do you mean, no? Hans—” 

“I told you,” Hans said, stepping away from Varian at last. The boy slumped over the moment he was released, as if all the strength had left him, and no doubt would have fallen if the guards weren’t holding him up. “I can handle this on my own. I don’t need magic.” 

Cassandra studied him coldly. “Fine,” she said. “But if you change your mind, you know how to contact me.” Passing Varian on her way to the door, she paused. “Chin up, kiddo,” she said, and was about to say something more when, for the first time, she noticed his hand. Her expression went funny, and she looked at Hans. “What did you do to him?”

Hans scowled. “What are you talking about?” He noticed what she was looking at, and his expression softened somewhat. “Oh, that? I didn’t do that. No, really,” he insisted when she looked like she didn’t believe him. “He did it to himself— some sort of freak incident in his lab back in Old Corona. He got really shitfaced on our wedding night and told me all about it.” 

Cassandra studied what little of Varian’s face she could see, slumped over as he was, black hair curtaining most of his expression. He didn’t seem to be crying anymore. 

She turned away. “Keep me updated,” she instructed, and was gone moments later. 

Hans paced the room for a while, thinking, kicking Varian’s bag and possessions around as if they were mere garbage. He approached Varian again, and Varian braced himself for another vicious strike, but instead Hans cupped his face lovingly in both hands. “You really mustn’t run away like that, darling. I was worried.” He kissed his forehead. “Come along— it’s time for bed.” 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short update! I've been busy with work and college. Updates will be somewhat erratic from now on. :/
> 
> Thanks for all the feedback and support!

Varian lay awake, ravaged by pain of all sorts, and wondered how long it would take Ruddiger to reach home. He estimated a few weeks, at least. Then it would be a day or two, give or take, before anyone came to his rescue. Which meant he was stuck here for three weeks at the minimum.

He stared at the wall for a long time, then closed his eyes, willing the world to end. How had he gotten himself into this mess? Beside him, Hans slept peacefully, indifferent to his despair. His face was deceptively beautiful when he was unconscious. Varian pictured drugging his tea again, this time with something slightly more lethal, but he knew he would never get the chance. He only wished he had been wise enough to do it from the start.

He astonished himself at having managed to screw up so badly. How could the world's greatest alchemist be so stupid? How many chances had he had to escape? He could have walked away from the altar, could have jumped ship on the way here, could have packed his bags and set off the moment his father made the announcement. But no— like an idiot, he’d chosen his lab, and his father, and the prospect of happiness over any modicum of logic.

Okay— yes. He admitted it. Part of him hadn’t been entirely opposed to this. Part of him had thought: why not? In all his sixteen years, no one had ever shown the slightest romantic interest in him. They all thought he was dangerous and weird, and even if they hadn’t, how could he have reciprocated, when none of them could come close to matching his intellect? Hans was breathtakingly handsome, and okay, granted, he wasn't a scientist, but he _was_ a prince and therefore loaded, so Varian wouldn’t have to worry about funding his career (his important work!) ever again. And it would make his father happy, and the world would finally accept him, and none of it would be a giant mistake, least of all the biggest mistake he'd ever made in his life, second only to destroying his own hand, third, perhaps, to going up against the Coronan royal family. Oh yes, he was still paying for that little misstep. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever stop paying for it.

He did this to himself; that was what killed him. No one could have drawn those two words

(I do)

from his lips with any amount of force. No one else could have taken that scalpel to his arm, and no one else could have botched that surgery. No one else could have kidnapped Queen Arianna and threatened Rapunzel and King Frederic. No one else could have trapped his father in amber and run, panicking, into a blizzard, towards the person least capable of helping him. No one else could have destroyed his village with experimental subterranean machines. No one else could have ruined his life.

No one else, no one else, no one else. It was his fault, all of it, and, once again, he was the only one who could fix it, because who else could he possibly depend upon? His father and his so-called friends were the very reason he was here. He’d told Ruddiger to bring them his notebook, but that was only because he couldn’t fathom any other plan. He was completely and utterly out of options.

He thought back to the letter. He’d opened it at arm’s length, because, knowing Rapunzel, she had packed it full of confetti or glitter or something girly like that, as a surprise, and it would all come spilling out. When it didn’t, he assumed the letter must be from his father, or even Eugene. But the handwriting was unfamiliar, and he frowned until he realized, his heart sinking, who it was from, and where he’d seen the seal before. It wasn’t Coronan at all. He read and reread it, and when he was finished, he felt numb, and his ears were ringing.

THE KING OF ORO FORMALLY ADDRESSES MASTER VARIAN OF OLD CORONA REQUESTING AN UPDATE REGARDING A COMMISSIONED WORK OF HIGHEST IMPORT, KINDLY RESPOND, CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ENGAGEMENT AND SUBSEQUENT MARRIAGE, MAY YOUR LIVES BE BLESSED HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF ORO

His father had not written, Rapunzel had not written, no one had written, no one was thinking about him, they had forgotten, they hated him, they wanted nothing to do with him and how could he blame them, and what was he going to do, and was he going to die here, and why did this happen and why did he let it and what the hell was he going to do?

Questions he could answer and questions he couldn't. But one thing was for sure: for the time being, he was on his own.

Hans rolled over in his sleep and draped an arm possessively around his waist. Varian, wide awake, did not twitch. He stared at his prosthesis, which lay on the floor, discarded after Hans had removed it to make raping him easier. The room smelled like blood and sex and the sky outside was pitch black.

He lay silent, motionless, and thought.


	18. Chapter 18

Varian was excited to show off the new automatons. “I guarantee you, you’re not gonna find technology this advanced anywhere else in the world.” His face was aglow with pride. “They respond to signals fired by your nerve endings. Here— put this on.” 

It was a gauntlet. Hans slid it over his hand, and a tingle of electricity traveled through his fingertips and up his arm. When he curled his fist, the robot curled its fist. When he lifted his arm, the robot did, too. 

“Isn’t it great?” Varian was smiling fit to burst, like a child at Christmas. “It’s mind-controlled!” 

“Very impressive,” Hans said, and he meant it. The robot, once finalized, would be hundreds of feet tall, ten times the size of what Varian now referred to as “mark one—” i.e., the robot he tried to kill Rapunzel and her family with. Only its torso and left arm had been built, but already its headless shoulders grazed the high ceiling. As Varian had informed him earlier, it would have to be taken apart and transported outside before construction could continue. 

“I used the same exact technology to build my prosthetic hand.” Varian pretended to skim the blueprints. “Of course, something this big isn’t entirely practical, when one calculates the expense.”

“Your job is to build,” Hans said. “Let me worry about money.” 

“Corona won’t stand a chance.” Varian spoke as unconcernedly as if the notion was purely hypothetical, when, in reality, as they both knew, his invention would soon be causing very real damage. He scribbled a note to himself in pencil. Hans took the gauntlet off and set it down. He hugged Varian from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. Varian, concentrating, didn’t react.

“Excellent work, my love. I knew I could get you to see things my way.”

Varian made no reply. Hans knew perfectly well he was only doing this because he had no choice. He glanced surreptitiously around the workshop. His staff, those servants whom Hans had hired to help him build— highly competent men and women Varian was pleased to have at his beck and call— were nowhere to be seen. With a jolt, he realized that Hans had sent them out of the room, which could only mean one thing. 

Hans turned him around and kissed him. It so happened that Varian was carrying, among other things, a wrench in his tool belt. His hand twitched instinctively towards it; it took every ounce of control in his body to stop himself. Not long after, Hans removed the belt along with his apron, and the wrench fell to the floor, out of reach, with a resounding clunk.

“I know what you must be going through,” Hans murmured in his ear. “You probably think I’m a monster. But don’t you see it’s better this way? Wouldn’t you rather go along with this willingly than have the moon witch put a spell on you?” This, Varian knew, was how he referred to Cass. “I know you’d prefer to keep your memories.”

Cass had been making it a habit to drop by (“checking in,” she called it), and every time she did, she insisted that things would go a whole lot easier if Varian was reduced to a mindless zombie with no individual thought or free will, or at the very least relieved of any notion that Corona deserved not to be reduced to a smoking pile of rubble. Hans refused to allow it. He seemed to prefer Varian just as he was: stubborn, defiant, difficult.

“For god’s sake,” Cass snapped, at a time when she and Hans thought he was out of earshot. “Where’s your focus—your ambition? Don’t you see that leaving him with his memories is just an unnecessary risk?”

Hans was scarcely attending. “Do you think Varian would want surgery to fix his teeth?” Varian couldn’t see what he was doing, but he pictured him idly tapping a pen against his journal, the way he often did when he was thinking. “Because sometimes I think they’re cute, and sometimes I can’t help but imagine how much better he would look if they were normal.”

“Hans,” Cass said dangerously; Varian could picture the warning in her eyes. He was a safe distance away and completely hidden, but still he shivered in fear.

“Or maybe I could find a fairy to do it,” Hans was saying, apparently failing to pick up on her impatience. “With magic. Have you ever heard him talk about magic? ‘It’s not real,’ ‘it doesn’t exist.’ I don’t know how he’s managed to deny it for this long.”

“He’s dangerous.”

“Not anymore. I told you, I have him under control.”

“He’s planning something. He has to be.”

“My men watch him day and night. They make sure he’s not working on anything other than what he’s supposed to. There’s no way he’s keeping secrets from me.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Cass’s volume had increased; Varian pictured her gesturing emphatically. “You think he’s just so scared of you, don’t you, the way you constantly hurt him? Well, you know what? I know more about that kid than you ever will, and I’m telling you he’s up to something. If we don’t stop him before it’s too late—”

“Cass.” Hans spoke with a sudden harsh tone. “Leave him alone. He’s my husband, under my protection. Understand?”

“Oh, right, I forgot, your husband.” Her voice dripped with a deadly sarcasm. “They didn’t forget about him, you know—his family, his friends. They’re going to start wondering why he hasn’t been writing back.”

It was at that moment that Varian realized that Hans had been intercepting any and all correspondences from Rapunzel and his father. So they had been writing to him, he thought, feeling suddenly intensely sick and dizzy. They hadn’t forgotten.

“So what?” Hans was saying. “They probably just think he’s mad at them.”

“You have to write back. Just say he’s doing fine and he’s busy with a project. ‘I love you,’ ‘I miss you,’ all that gooey crap. Let me know if you need help faking his signature.” A pause. “He hasn’t asked you about his father at all?”

“No. Why would he? I thought they didn’t have a good relationship.”

Cass sighed. “Shows what you know.”

Varian had crept away soon after that, disheartened and weak. Ruddiger left with his notebook two months ago and never came back. He still held out hope that someone would come for him, but the odds were starting to look slim.

Of course, there was always plan B. Hans thought he couldn’t keep secrets, but Cass had had a point: he knew very little about Varian.

Hans kicked his toolbelt aside, then backed him into a table. Varian closed his eyes and allowed himself to be kissed and felt. When Hans turned him around and pushed his face against the table’s surface, he allowed that, too. It was only for a little bit longer, he reassured himself. Just a little bit longer.


	19. Chapter 19

A few days later, Varian was working and Hans was sitting around, reading poetry, when a pair of guards entered the lab. Hans frowned at them. “What is it?”

“Message from King Frederic and Queen Arianna of Corona,” said the first guard. “They’re waiting for you upstairs.”

Hans was startled. “The king and queen of Corona are here? In my castle?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Well, tell them to get out!”

“They insist upon seeing Prince Varian. Apparently, his father has been expressing a great deal of concern over his welfare.”

Hans scowled and went back to his book. “That’s absurd.”

“Shall we tell them His Highness refuses their request?”

Hans was silent, thinking. Then he sighed and stood up. “Keep an eye on my husband. Make sure nothing happens to him.”

Throughout this exchange, Varian remained fully concentrated on his work, behaving as if no interruption had occurred. He didn’t flinch when Hans kissed his head and didn’t so much as look up when he left the room.

One of the guards removed his helmet. “What an idiot.” It was Eugene; he was grinning. “Seriously, kid, what did you ever see in that guy?” Before he could read a reaction on the kid’s face, the second guard rushed forward and lifted him off his feet, hugging him tightly.

“My son,” he murmured. “I’m so glad I found you.”

“Easy, Quirin,” Eugene said, “you’re gonna crush the poor guy. Put him down.”

Quirin put his son down and knelt, holding his arms, gazing into his face. “Are you alright? Did they hurt you?”

Varian said nothing. His face betrayed no emotions, but then, it was half-hidden beneath his work goggles. As Quirin reached to take them off, Eugene whistled, gazing at the giant robot. “Look what they were building. With something like this, they could’ve had Corona on their knees in under a minute.” He scooped a bunch of blueprints into his bag, then slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s get the kid out of here so he can testify about it.”

“Something’s wrong,” said Quirin. He waved a hand in front of Varian’s face. The boy didn’t react. “Varian? Varian, it’s me—it’s dad. Do you recognize me?”

Varian said nothing. His face was oddly slack— empty. Eugene felt a sudden sense of dread; he knelt beside Quirin. “Uh-oh,” he muttered. “Kid? Kid, look at me. It’s your pal, Eugene.” He snapped his fingers an inch from the kid’s nose. “Can you hear me?”

Varian’s eyes were blue—whites, pupils, irises, all the same pale shade of blue—and glowing like coals.

“He’s under a spell,” Eugene confirmed grimly.

“Varian!” Quirin shook him. “Snap out of it.”

“It’s no use. Come on—we have to find Rapunzel.”

“But Hans doesn’t know magic.” Quirin gathered his son in his arms and followed Eugene to the door.

“I don’t think Hans was the one who did this.” He paused and pressed an ear to the door. “Shit. Can’t go this way.” They’d gotten in using their disguises, but Eugene doubted they could walk out just as easily if they were going to be laden with a deeply hypnotized alchemist. “Look for a secret exit.”

A trapdoor led them to the garden, where Rapunzel, dressed as a lady-in-waiting, was serving Her Majesty, the Queen of Besessen—Hans’s mother—tea and cake. “Oh my god,” she said when she saw Varian being carried in his father’s arms. “Is he okay?”

“He’s under a spell.” Eugene hesitated, then pointed at the Queen. “Is she, uh…?”

“She’s a friend,” Rapunzel said, lowering her voice, “sort of. She won’t tell on us—she won’t even remember having met us. She’s a little…” She made a gesture that meant ‘crazy.’ Eugene waved his hands.

“Nevermind. Look— Quirin, show her the kid’s eyes.”

Quirin put Varian down in front of Rapunzel, though he kept a protective grip on his shoulders. When she saw his eyes glowing blue, her hands flew to her mouth. “Cassandra,” she whispered in shock.

Quirin held his son closer. “Who?”

“Cassandra—is she here? Did you see her? Where is she?” Her voice had gone shrill, and the teacup she'd been holding slipped, forgotten, from her hand, spilling its contents all over the pristine grass.

“We didn’t see her,” Eugene said, “but she must be working with Hans.”

“Why would she be working with Hans?”

“I don’t know. We can ask him that when he’s arrested. There’s more than enough evidence downstairs to put him away for good.”

“Evidence?” One could see the trepidation in her eyes. Eugene hesitated again. “It’s not important right now,” he said lamely. “Let’s just get Varian out of here, and—”

“No.” She balled her fists. “Tell me. What do you mean, evidence?”

Quirin said, “Prince Hans was using my son to build weaponry. He put a spell on him to make him comply. It must have happened after he sent Ruddiger to us.”

Rapunzel looked dizzy. “It can’t be.”

“It is.” Quirin hugged his son tightly. “My only son—my beloved child. I sent him to live with a monster.”

Varian stared into nothing, his eyes as blank as a doll's. Rapunzel hesitated, then approached him, slowly. “Varian? Varian, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Varian said, surprising everyone. Eugene jumped back. “Oh,” he said weakly. “I guess he can still talk.”

“Varian,” Rapunzel said again, ignoring her boyfriend; Varian stared past her unseeingly. “You’re under a spell. Do you know who did this to you?”

Varian nodded. “My husband, Prince Hans of Besessen, and Cassandra the Moon Witch.”

“Moon Witch?” Eugene scoffed. “Are you kidding me? That title is way too cool for her.”

“Where is she now?” Rapunzel asked. Varian said nothing. “Cassandra," she pressed, "the Moon Witch. Where is she?” Again, Varian said nothing.

“He probably doesn’t know,” Eugene suggested. 

“No,” Rapunzel snapped impatiently. “If he didn’t know, he could just say that. She must’ve forbidden him from talking about her.” 

“Where are the king and queen?” Quirin asked. 

“They’re distracting Hans in the ballroom,” Rapunzel said. “We don’t have much time.” She reached for Varian, but Quirin pulled him away from her. 

“I rescued my son,” he said. “You have your evidence. It is time for us to return to Old Corona.” 

“Okay,” Eugene said at the same time as Rapunzel cried, “wait!” She seized Varian’s hand and hung on like it was a lifeline. “We can’t take him home yet.” 

“What?” Eugene said, surprised. “Why not?” 

“He can help us. We can set a trap for Cassandra. They think he’s totally under their control, but if we can just—”

“Blondie,” Eugene began, but before he could say anything else, Quirin seized Rapunzel’s wrist and broke her grip on his son. He pushed her, gently, but firmly, a safe distance away.

“No,” he said, and the tone of his voice made her flinch. “No one is going to use my son for anything anymore. You’ll have to capture this witch some other way.”

“What?” Rapunzel was aghast. “But this is the perfect chance. You can’t take him—I need to do this! Please, Quirin, we can bring him home after. Just—”

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” Quirin bowed his head; he seemed genuinely repentant, as if it hurt him to refuse the princess. “But it is not possible. I must guard the welfare of my son. Already, I have allowed harm to befall him.”

“But—”

“Blondie.” Eugene put a hand on Rapunzel’s shoulder. She looked at him pleadingly.

“We have to catch Cassandra,” she said.

“I know.” He hugged her. “And we will. Just not like this.”

“But what if we never get another chance?” Rapunzel pulled free of his grasp and followed Quirin, who was halfway to the gates. “Stop!” She commanded, raising her voice. “As princess, I order you to do as I ask.”

Quirin paused for a split second only. “No,” he said, and with that, he carried his son out of the garden, leaving Rapunzel distraught.


	20. Chapter 20

It was always hard not to feel useless, with Varian as a son. He was always so smart, and bright, and curious, even as a baby. While he was growing up, Quirin had provided him with what little he could to foster his talents: books, a lab, a pair of goggles, and copious warnings (stay out of trouble, don’t go there, don’t play with that, that’s dangerous). For a long time, his biggest fear was that Varian would get hurt. As time went on, he began to fear that Varian would _cause_ hurt. Then that fear became a reality, not just once, but time and time again. He had good intentions, always, but the fact was that he was capable of causing great harm, and that he almost always did.

Still, Quirin struggled to keep him out of trouble; then, one fateful, stormy night, he suddenly couldn’t. In the space of a blink, it seemed (he had no memory of being in the amber), his son’s name became synonymous with treason. The disappointment Quirin felt bordered on physical pain. He wept to think his son’s life was destroyed; he blamed himself for letting it happen. His son had needed him, and what had he done? Nothing. The boy lost his mind, built robots and monsters and attempted to murder the royal family, and he’d done nothing at all.

He was a horrible father.

He swore to himself he would learn from his mistakes. Never again would he allow his son to come to harm. Hans was the perfect solution. Marriage would give him a fresh start; it would take him far away from his past, from the mistakes he’d made, from the townspeople who wanted to kill him on the street, or, at the very least, break every bone in his wrist. King Frederic and Queen Arianna had offered countless reassurances: “the best possible option,” “a fine, upstanding young man,” “a little eccentric, perhaps, but that just gives them something in common.”

(The thought that, at the time, he’d actually bought into that logic caused his blood to boil. How could he have been so stupid?)

Varian had pleaded with him. Quirin had never seen him so distraught. He asked himself, am I doing the right thing? He almost started to doubt it. Then he looked at his son, at his blue eyes and dark hair, his beautiful face and skillful hands that could craft almost anything, given the chance— hands that would one day, Quirin knew, change the world. And he knew he couldn’t allow anything to happen to him. He would keep Varian alive, even if it made them both miserable.

Anyway, Hans was nice enough, and he had money. Varian would see that it wasn’t so bad. Who knew? A few years, and they might even learn to love each other.

Quirin could no longer control his rage. He attacked the furniture with his bare hands. By the time he regained control of himself, the dining room lay in splinters.

Chest heaving, he turned and looked out the window. Varian was right where he’d left him: in the vegetable patch, not weeding or even reading, but just staring into space. His eyes were bluer than ever, and he reacted to not a word his father said. It had taken him a very short time to realize that Rapunzel (as a result of her magical abilities, no doubt) was the only one he could communicate with. Everyone else might as well be invisible. Even Ruddiger, he ignored. The raccoon often perched on his shoulders or his head, and sometimes he would filch an apple or a piece of cookie from god-knows-where and offer it to him, waving it in front of his paper-blank stare, but Varian never so much as blinked.

Rapunzel, to her credit, appeared to regret the things she’d said in the garden. She visited Old Corona with a carriage filled with gifts: flowers, pastries, even a few books of the sort that Quirin knew Varian had no interest in—fairy tales, romances. She kept her eyes on the ground when she apologized. “I don’t know what got into me. I’m sorry.”

“Your Highness has nothing to apologize for.” Quirin had knelt before her. “If not for the efforts of you and your family, I would not have been able to reunite with my son.”

“Where is Varian?”

He pointed the way. “I like to keep him outside,” he explained. “The sunlight is good for him. He’s been indoors for most of his life.”

Rapunzel asked him how he felt. Unable to reply dishonestly or to decline answering at all, he reported that he felt nothing, because “that’s how the spell works.” She asked him how to break it; he said he didn’t know. 

She sighed and petted the cat’s ears. It purred, and she smiled and placed it in her lap. “Since when did you have a cat?” 

“Hans gave it to me, a few weeks before the wedding.” 

Rapunzel said nothing for a while. “Did he ever...” She faltered, casted a surreptitious glance toward the house. Quirin was inside; there was no way he would overhear. “Did he ever... hurt you?” 

“He treated me like an object,” Varian said in the clear yet toneless voice he used invariably, because of the spell. “Sometimes, I was like a hammer, and he only needed me to build his machines. Sometimes I was his punching bag. Sometimes I was his toy, when wanted sex. I don’t think he ever saw me as a person.”

Rapunzel was quiet. If Varian hadn’t been hypnotized, she was certain he wouldn’t have told her— just like he never told her, or Quirin, or anyone about his hand. Her eyes flicked towards it. He’d come clean, of course, the minute she asked him about it, the day they’d rescued him. The sheer horror of the truth had almost caused her to faint— and she _wasn’t_ a fainter, she prided herself on that. 

But Varian— Varian. Varian was always taking things too far. And now look at the mess they were in. 

She put her head in her hand. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to. “Tell me what he did to you, exactly.” Thus far, while Varian was forbidden to talk about Cass, there seemed to be no such limitations when it came to Hans. Of course, none of this was admissible in court; someone who was hypnotized wasn’t considered a reliable source of information. Which was mostly the reason why Hans was still in the dungeons instead of having been executed already. 

Varian was the only one who really knew the truth. Until they could lift the spell off him, Hans couldn’t be proven guilty.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, everyone! I wanted to thank you for all your lovely feedback and support. This chapter is a little short and also a flashback. More coming soon!

A little while after Varian turned sixteen, he and Rapunzel traveled for hours to get to the top of a hill. She sketched flowers and watched the squirrels and birds while he pulled a wooden wagon filled with paper gliders. The largest of them was as long as his arm, and the smallest the size of his ring finger. They were all prototypes for a flying machine he hoped to build one day.

It was a frivolous project, he’d explained to her, more for fun than anything else. It wasn’t likely that he would actually be able to build a method of aerial transport faster or more practical than his hot-air balloon. He just couldn't get the concept out of his head. 

“I actually got the idea from a dream I once had,” he confessed. “I was flying— not in a balloon, but with wings. Like an eagle.” He smiled as he wound up to launch the first glider. “It was amazing. I’d never felt so free.” 

He put his whole body into the throw. The glider sailed gracefully into the blue. They stood side by side and watched it, the wind moving their clothes and hair gently. The weather was perfect, and the late-afternoon sunlight was the color of amber. 

She should’ve been happy. Instead, when he turned and looked at her, her eyes were filled with sadness. 

His smile faded. He didn’t have to guess what was wrong. “Your parents have been talking about me again.” 

She turned away, gazing unhappily at the wagon. If only Varian could be as free as all these flimsy little paper gliders. 

He persisted, “what did they say?” 

She sighed. “It looks like they’re going to send you away.” As he reached into the wagon for the next one, she faltered, the words causing her something very close to physical pain. “There’s this... sanatorium.” 

Varian wound up again, then let loose. The glider careened into the sky, rose, and spiraled downwards. He stared over the edge of the cliff. For an instant, fear struck her as it looked like he was about to jump. Instead, he just sat down and flopped backwards in the grass— listless, despondent, staring up into infinity. 

“I wish I was dead,” he said tonelessly. Rapunzel lay back, stretching out next to him. They both stared up at the sky, saying nothing, for a long time. The gliders sat, forgotten, in the wagon.

“I’m not going to let them take you,” Rapunzel said. “It wasn’t your fault. Not any of it.” 

“It’s okay,” he said, sounding hollow, numb. “Whatever they want to do to me, I’ll find a way to deal with it. It isn’t your problem.”

She sat up, frowning. “But you’re my friend. Of course it’s my problem.” 

“It’s not. I’m the one who screwed up.” He rolled onto his side so that he was facing away for her. “I’m a horrible person. I deserve to be punished.” 

“That’s not true.” She grabbed his arm and rolled him back over so that he had to look at her. He blushed; she was practically on top of him. She pretended not to notice. “It’s all my fault. If anyone deserves to be punished, it’s me.” She lowered her voice, speaking gently. “You’re a good person, Var. Everything you do is to help people.” She smiled. “You wanted to save your dad. What’s so wrong with that?”

Varian didn’t answer. His expression was completely blank, but he was breathing hard— she could see his chest heaving. Suddenly, he sat up, and for a split moment, their lips touched. Then he shifted away, staring down at his hands, his face blazing red. Her face burned, too, and she cleared her throat, looking away.

“Anyway,” she said, after a long, painful silence had elapsed. “They’re not trying to punish you, really. The place you’re going— it’s supposed to help you.”

“They think I’m sick.” Varian drew his knees to his chest and hugged them, scowling into the distance with an expression of deep resentment she’d only seen him wear once or twice, back in those days— back when when he was trying to kill her. “They think I’m crazy.”

“They don’t.”

“Yes, they do, and who am I to say that I’m not? Crazy people don’t know they’re crazy.” He gestured emphatically, an eyebrow quirked in dry humor. “That’s what makes them crazy.” He hesitated, looking away, and she could see the worry in his eyes. “Rapunzel... if I was crazy, you’d tell me, right?” 

“You’re not.”

His cheeks were like two fire pits. He buried his head in his arms. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I did that.” 

“It’s okay,” she said. “I won’t tell him if you won’t.” It was clear she meant Eugene. It was also clear she didn’t feel the same way. She wouldn’t tell on him, but she didn’t like him back; the whole kingdom knew who her heart truly belonged to. 

Varian stared at the darkening sky. He really wished he was dead. And now it would be night soon, and they hadn’t even flown all the gliders. The walked all this way for nothing; they’d wasted their time. 

He stiffened as he felt her hand on his head. She stroked his hair, like a mother would her child. He held carefully still, as if one move would frighten her away. 

“I can’t believe you’re sixteen,” she marveled. “In a few years, you’ll be of marrying age. Maybe you’ll find a beautiful girl to elope with. Then you won’t even feel bad about leaving this stupid kingdom.” 

“That’s the thing,” he said with fresh frustration. “I’ve lived in Corona my whole life. It wouldn’t be so bad to get out there, to see the world. I just wish I was doing it on my terms, instead of...” he trailed off. Instead of being cast out, he wanted to say. Instead of being banished.

She hugged him. “I’m going to talk to my parents,” she said. “I’ll make them listen to me. I won’t let them send you away.” 

“You promise?” His voice was small, vulnerable. She hugged him tighter and didn’t care when he didn’t hug her back.

“I promise.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I hate life and I want to die but have this chapter. I hope things aren't progressing too quickly to be comprehensible-- I've been battling writer's block and the main way I do that is by trying to move things along, plotwise.

He remembered things only in fragments. He remembered his wedding night, up to a point. He didn’t remember Hans raping him, but he remembered waking up the next morning in moderate pain, and he remembered seeing, while he was getting dressed, garnet-colored smears of dried blood on his legs. There was also blood beneath his fingernails, but he didn’t think it was his. Indeed, the next night, and every night after for several months (he remembered this as well), he got to see the long claw marks he’d left on Hans’s chest and back—with his left hand only, of course. He remembered how Hans had struggled with the straps of his prosthesis, until he’d eventually gotten used to them. Then he was able to detach and reattach it more swiftly and efficiently than Varian, one-handed, ever could, or likely ever will.

He remembered the color of the sheets: white. He remembered—since the drapes were never closed— how he could always see the night sky and find shapes and patterns in the stars as they fucked. He remembered Hans whispering things in his ear, about how beautiful he was, and how intelligent, and special, and sweet. He said “I love you” a lot, but only when they weren’t having sex. Varian felt as if people didn’t often lie when they were having sex, or at the very least, that they weren’t as good at it. It was a hypothesis he doubted he’d ever be able to test, for various reasons.

He didn’t care. He was happy. Hans was gone, from everywhere, forever. Freedom was magnificent. Never again would he have to breathe the same air as that man— his husband, of a few short, long, interminable months. Never again would he have to lift a wrench or hammer a nail as a result of Hans telling him to, never again would he have to listen to him read poetry, never again would he have to hold back tears while his hair was pulled and his body used against his will.

Hans was gone, gone. “I didn’t attend the execution myself,” Eugene said, in as casual a tone as if he were talking about the tea party of some royal someone-or-other he didn’t care an ounce about. “Those machines of death always creep me out— guess I came a little to close to getting put in one, myself, to feel comfortable around them.” He added, “Of course, you weren’t there. You were still under at the time.”

Rapunzel had been the one to break the spell… not that Eugene knew that. He might be hurt if he knew. Varian didn’t remember the kiss. He wished he could remember. He tried, but he couldn’t.

She kissed him. The princess of Corona kissed him, and he couldn’t even remember. That bothered him almost more than any other part of this.

Eugene seemed not to know what to do with his silence. He cleared his throat and changed the subject, as if he thought maybe Varian didn’t want to discuss Hans’s death, like maybe it bothered him, when actually he felt quite happy whenever he thought of it. “How’s the, uh, arm?”

“Fine.” Varian lifted it. “Now that I’m free, I can work on it again. This was never supposed to be the finished version—more of a prototype.” The King of Oro—Solomon was his name— had been generous enough to grant him an extension on their commission as a result of his being kidnapped and enslaved. “I have a whole list of improvements I want to make.”

Eugene said nothing, which wasn’t like him. “Actually, kid,” he said without taking his eyes off the floor, “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know—for everything. I just.” He faltered, sighed. “I can’t believe this happened.”

Varian shrugged. He opened and closed his metal fist a few times. The joints could use some oiling, he noticed absently.

“You’re not going to… go insane and seek revenge, are you?”

Varian scowled, irritated. “If I did, you’d be the first person I went after. You promised you would help me and then you left. I kept waiting for you to come back, but you never did.” His voice lowered. “You left me.”

“I know.” Eugene didn’t apologize, and he didn’t meet his gaze. “I don’t know why I did it. I never thought—none of us thought that that guy—Hans—could be capable of something like that. We all thought… I don’t know, that it would be good for you. To get away. We thought you would be happy.”

“No, you didn’t,” Varian said without missing a beat. “_They_ thought that—Rapunzel and the king and queen. It’s what they told themselves so they could feel better about getting rid of me. But you—” Varian waited for Eugene to look him in the eye— “you’re not like them. You’re like me. You knew what I was getting into. And you didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry.”

Varian studied Eugene's face. He was superhumanly gorgeous. His eyes were so deep and sensitive; one could get lost in them. One could believe in anything that he said.

He looked at his prosthesis. “I’m not going to seek revenge. There’s no need. Hans is dead, and I’m free. Problem solved; everyone’s happy.”

“You can’t really think that.”

“What do you think is going to happen?” he asked. “What do you think is going to happen next? I’m not going to seek revenge. I told you already. Revenge is a path that’s closed off to me forever, thanks to what I did. But if you think, that even after _all that_—” his voice rose considerably; he couldn’t help it; he thought he might go mad— “that they’re still going to let me live here, you’re a fool. Hans is dead, but all that means is now they have to figure out another way to get rid of me. So will you be on my side then?”

Eugene held his gaze, saying nothing.

Varian smiled. “Didn’t think so,” he said.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you have been wondering whether Quirin is aware of the rape. The answer: yes. Yes, he is.

A traveling chest lay open on the floor where the dining room table used to be. Into it, Quirin tossed his son’s things: clothing, books, a stuffed toy of Ruddiger’s. Varian watched him, his eyes blazing with anger, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line. Every so often, his eyelid twitched. His skin was deathly pale, and he wasn’t wearing his gloves. What was the point, when his dad knew everything already? His mechanical hand was curled tightly against his mouth. Without it, he didn’t trust himself not to scream.

“Where are your boots?” Quirin asked without glancing at him. Varian looked down at his feet. He was wearing the same white stockings and navy flats (both gifts from his late husband) he’d been wearing when he was rescued. He didn’t own anything else, not anymore.

“In Besessen,” he said tartly. “With the rest of my things.”

Quirin folded a shirt. “You won’t need them.”

“But I want them,” Varian said. Ruddiger, sensing his distress, nosed his way into his arms. Varian petted him without thinking about it and without calming down. “And I want my lab. Do you know how expensive half of that equipment is? And what about Solomon’s machine? I still haven’t finished it.”

“And you never will.”

Varian lost his temper. He put Ruddiger down on the floor and advanced towards his dad. “Why do I have to go?” He raised his voice angrily. “It’s not fair!”

Quirin didn’t turn around. Varian hesitated, then began to unpack his things. His father seized his wrist, stood up, and stepped forward so that Varian was forced to stumble back or fall. “When are you going to learn not to argue with me?”

Varian tried to twist free. If his father was holding his real arm instead of the prosthetic one, he would have been in a great deal of pain. As it was, he could hear the creaking and straining of metal that meant he would certainly have to do repairs later. “Let me go!”

“Don’t you see that I only want what’s best for you?”

“That’s what you said last time,” Varian said, hating himself for the tears that sprang to his eyes. He tried again to free himself, and when that didn’t work, he began to hammer on his father’s chest with a closed fist. It was like pummeling a stone wall: useless.

“Stop it.” His father held him at arm’s distance. Varian struggled a few moments longer, then gave up. Tears were streaming down his face.

“Why can’t I stay with you?” 

“It’s not safe here.”

“But I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’ll be good. I promise.” 

“I know you will. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about this.” He held up Varian’s prosthesis. “There are people in Corona who would go to great lengths to hurt you. It’s my job to keep you safe from them.”

“But last time—” 

“This won’t be like last time. It’ll be completely safe. There will be doctors, nurses— people who will help you, people who will make it their mission to see that you become well.” 

“But I’m fine.” 

“I love you, Varian. I wouldn’t make you do this unless it was the right thing.” 

“Don’t make me go. Please, dad, don’t make me.” 

Quirin relinquished his grip at last. Varian sank to his knees, lowered his head into his lap, and sobbed uncontrollably. As his father continued to pack his things, Ruddiger climbed onto his back and settled in between his shoulder blades, a comforting ball of warmth. Varian cried until he was empty, until he could scarcely breathe, until he’d used up all his tears. Then he sat motionless, hiccuping.

He heard his father leave the room, then come back. He felt a blanket draped over his shoulders. He didn’t lift his head, not even when his father sat down on the floor next to him, grunting because his bones were somewhat old and worn.

“I was afraid I would lose you,” he said. “I feared you would remain under that spell forever. I am grateful that it wore off on its own.”

Varian said nothing. Beneath the blanket, annoyed and confused, Ruddiger was moving around. His furry tail brushed Varian’s neck, tickling him. He smiled morosely, nonsensically.

“I love you, Varian. Please don’t be angry with me. This is the last we’re going to see of each other for a long time, and I don’t— I don’t want to fight.” There was a silence. “Please,” his father begged quietly. “Son...” 

Varian couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He threw himself into his father’s arms, hugging him tightly. His father hugged him back, squeezing him almost until he could no longer breathe, but Varian didn’t care. He felt safe. He wished he could remain in this embrace forever.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” 

“You must write every day. Promise me you will write.”

Varian nodded. “I promise.” He buried his face into his father’s shoulder, which was massive and solid, like a boulder or a tree. Suddenly, he was incredibly, impossibly exhausted. He felt his father pick him up, as if he weighed nothing, as if he was a kid again. Quirin carried him to his room and put him down on the bed. He tried to step back, but Varian refused to let him go. 

“I love you, dad.” 

“I love you, too, my boy.” He prised the child’s arms loose. “Let go of me.”

Varian did as he was told. He sank back against the pillows and fell asleep holding his father’s hand for the first time since he was six.


	24. Chapter 24

The Maison de Guérison had a picturesque mountain view, and Varian fell in love with it immediately. By the time a few days had passed, he’d filled an entire sketchbook with dilettante renderings. He wasn’t allowed to so much as think about alchemy while he was stuck here, but the nurses were kind enough to provide him with as many pencils and as much paper as he wanted, so long as he only used them for art.

Amelie liked to watch from over his shoulder. _“Dessiner des oiseaux,”_ she suggested. Varian, having long since stopped trying to understand her, kept his eyes on his paper and waited for her to go away. She was very pretty; it’d taken him a while to figure out she was a few cards short of a full deck. She’d seemed perfectly normal at first, until dinner one night, when she poured her bowl of soup into his lap, and the next day, when she stole one of his sharpened pencils and tried to stab a nurse.

He didn’t like her very much. He wondered why she always followed him around. She reminded him of Ruddiger… if Ruddiger was dangerously stupid, bordering on insane, and, instead of bringing him bits and crumbs of food, was always trying to steal pages out of his sketchbooks and novels. One time he caught her gazing at a torn-out illustration of Flynnigan Rider that was one of his favorites. He’d grown angry and snatched it out of her hands.

“Hey! That’s _mine.”_

She’d looked at him in confusion. _“Tu es allemand?_” It was the first exchange they’d ever had, unless the soup incident counted. In any case, it was the first _verbal_ exchange they’d ever had.

He tried to shove the drawing into his pocket before realizing, with annoyance, that their uniforms didn’t have pockets. He held it behind his back so that she couldn’t grab it. “You’re always touching my stuff,” he snapped. “If you want to look at pictures, just go to the library.” She stared at him cluelessly. He felt a blush creep to his face. “The library,” he repeated, slightly louder this time. “Li—bra—ry. Do you understand?”

She seemed not to— not that it mattered, anyway. She wasn’t interested in books. She was interested in _his_ books, and the grotesque stump of his arm, and the blue streak in his hair, and even his drawings, which, if he deemed them terrible and crumpled and threw them away, she always carefully smoothed out and stashed beneath her pillow. She was twenty-three, and it was rumored that she had a daughter someplace, and that her husband had had her put in here some years ago before vanishing without a trace.

Varian felt bad for her. He felt worse for her than he did for himself. As the weeks wore on, he tolerated her presence as she trailed him from pillar to post. She watched him draw, read, write, eat, brush his hair, even make his bed. Eventually, because she simply wouldn’t leave him alone about it, he let her see what remained of his right arm up close. They sat in the grass beneath the afternoon sunlight as she studied the bumpy, uneven scars, holding them an inch from her nose.

He didn’t know why he let her. She was dangerous and strange, but so was he, and he trusted her, somehow. “It was an accident,” he explained. “It was stupid. I thought my dad would kill me, but he didn’t. He just sent me here.” He smiled bitterly. “I honestly don’t know which is worse.”

_“Parle français s'il te plait.”_

“What’s your daughter’s name? Do you really have a daughter? And a husband? And did he really abandon you here?”

But, of course, she couldn’t answer. Even the doctors and nurses had a hard time talking to Varian. He sighed and wished he had a language dictionary.

He wanted to talk to her. There were times when it would have benefited him a great deal to be able to talk to her.

One night he woke up, sweaty and shaking, from a nightmare to find her sitting on him. He tried to jerk away, but she clapped one hand over his mouth and used the other to hold tight to his wrist, pinning him securely.

The doctors had confiscated his prosthesis upon arrival. Without it, he couldn’t fight her.

Still rattled from his nightmare, his eyes welled with tears and he began to cry. She watched him with eyes not unlike a dead fish’s. _“Je n'ai jamais embrassé un allemand. Je ne les aime pas beaucoup.” _

She kissed him. He could smell her hair, a pleasant, honeyed scent. He closed his eyes tightly and waited for it to be over. His gut twisted in horror when she slipped a hand beneath his pants. He struggled. She barely noticed.

_“Ne t'inquiète pas. Vous l'aimerez.” _She stroked his penis, and he shivered from head to toe. He couldn’t help it; it felt good, so good. She’d stopped covering his mouth, but he didn’t scream. He lay beneath her, moaning and sighing, and even when she let go of his wrist, he didn’t try to escape. When she finally went back to her own mattress, he didn't get up and go look for someone to tell them what had happened. The next day, she behaved as if nothing was different, and so did he. 

He wrote to his dad that he was bored out of his mind and wanted to come home; he put his best drawings in the envelope, but he said nothing about Amelie. He didn’t know why. He wrote about the weather, and how he missed his lab, and how it wasn’t fair that he couldn’t have his prosthesis, and how everyone spoke French so he had no one to talk to. He begged to be allowed to leave. He swore he would be good, that he would do no harm, that he would be a better son, a better citizen, a better person. This place was for crazy people, he wrote. He didn’t belong here. He begged for his freedom.

He never mentioned her.

His father wrote him back. _Ruddiger sends his love, _he said. _He misses you greatly._ The raccoon hadn’t wanted to part with his master again, not after what happened last time; Varian had had to sedate him with sleeping powder in a plum tart. He’d done it with regret, unable to escape the nagging feeling that Ruddiger— a raccoon!— was the only one who really cared about him, about what he felt, about what he wanted. 

“I’ll see you soon, buddy,” he’d whispered, petting the oblivious, sleeping animal, before stepping into the carriage that would take him to the harbor. 

He was really beginning to hate the sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got all my French from good ol’, trusty, completely infallible Google translate. Maison de Guerison is House of Healing. Then, in order, it goes:
> 
> 1\. Draw some birds  
2\. You’re German?  
3\. Please speak french  
4\. I’ve never kissed a German before. I don’t like them very much  
5\. Don’t worry. You’ll like it.


	25. Chapter 25

Winter came, and with it, illness. Varian was drawing the sunrise one morning when he coughed up blood, hot, sticky, coal-black. They whisked him to a separate ward; later, after it was all over, he would have no memory of his time there. Letters from his father, increasingly worried, accumulated on his pillow, but he couldn’t answer or even read them; he could barely swallow the weak rice broth that was served to him three times daily. He lost fourteen pounds— more than ten percent of his body weight. After his recovery, he saw himself in the looking glass, and his skin was a sickly greyish-yellow, his cheeks sunken, the bones sharply defined. He was unsettled; he didn’t recognize himself.

At least he survived. Others weren’t so lucky. Even some of the nurses died. There were screams in the night, inhuman, ghastly. His suffering was unbearable; there were moments when he wished for a way to end it all. He had always had bad dreams, ever since the amber, but now he could no longer distinguish them from reality. He saw his mom, his dad, Hans, Rapunzel... Cassandra, her hair so shockingly, vibrantly blue that he was convinced she couldn’t be an illusion. He saw her lips move, but no words seemed to come out, or maybe they did and he was just too out of it to understand them. He wanted to reach for her, but his arms were like lead. He begged for help with his eyes. She watched him impassively, as one would a bird in a cage, then went away.

He turned seventeen. At around the same time, he got better. They moved him back to his old wing, which was much emptier than he remembered. It was only himself and one other patient— not Amelie, someone else. At some point, he looked at the calendar and realized it was March. He stood there, dazed, until a nurse asked him if he was alright, and he nodded even though he wasn’t, really. 

He wrote his father back, explaining what had happened. He didn’t ask to come home; he was tired of being rejected. Instead, he penned a short reminder to feed Ruddiger the special pastries he liked, which could only be bought at a specific bakery upon request, wished his father well, and signed his name. He didn’t say anything about Hans, had never said anything about Hans. They avoided the topic like it didn’t exist.

He still didn’t have his prosthesis, but he knew that, even if he did, it wouldn’t fit him anymore. He’d lost too much weight. He’d always been thin to begin with, but now he could face the looking-glass, lift up his ill-fitting beige shirt, and count every one of his ribs as easily as if they were piano keys. Some of them even showed, faintly, above his collarbones. His neck was sinewy; he could literally watch himself breathing, his windpipe shrinking and expanding with each breath.

Part of him knew that, if there was ever a time to cry, this was it, but he didn’t feel like crying. In fact, he didn’t feel much of anything. He abandoned his sketchbooks and pencils, ignored the gorgeous landscape and the miraculous sunset over the water and lay in his bed, sometimes awake, sometimes asleep, not thinking about anything in particular. He ate what little he could, but still he continued to lose weight— five pounds, six pounds. The doctors visited him regularly, but no one seemed to know how to fix him. They seemed not to know what was wrong. 

A woman’s heart-shaped face appeared in front of him. It was Rapunzel. She smiled and asked if he was okay. He was surprised to see her; no one told him she was coming. He’d always assumed that, if anyone was going to visit, it would be his father, but here she was, her yellow-haired majesty, and here he wasn’t. Varian simply didn’t know what to say. 

In the end, he just shrugged and looked away. She took his chin in her hand and made him look at her. “Varian,” she said softly, “talk to me. The doctors say you aren’t getting better.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Why aren’t you eating?” 

He grew annoyed. “I am.” 

“You’re so thin. What happened to your hair?” 

“They cut it.” He pulled free from her gentle, well-meaning grasp; he couldn’t stand it. “How come my dad didn’t visit me?” 

“He sent you this.” She was holding a basket; in it were the pastries Varian had requested for Ruddiger, and Varian’s annoyance increased as he realized his father must have misunderstood his request. It just proved his point further. His father never listened to him. Did he even care? His face grew hot with anger, and he scowled at the floor. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“Please, Varian. Just eat a little.” 

“Where’s my dad?” 

“He’s not here. He couldn’t come.” 

“Why not?” 

“Varian,” she said, then sighed. His mattress creaked as she sat down. “You know your dad has a lot of responsibilities. He wanted to be here— he _will_ be, eventually,” she said, in the ardent tone of one making a promise, although Varian didn’t fail to note (with a good deal of amusement) that she carefully avoided using that term this time around. “Just not now.” 

He took a tiny bite of a pastry, because she simply wouldn’t rest until he had. Like all food these days, it tasted like paper, and he had a hard time swallowing. 

“Thanks,” he told her. He waited to learn the real reason she was here— something about Cassandra, most likely. But she didn’t ask him anything. She just made sure he ate a decent amount and informed him that she was staying in a village nearby and would return the following day. 

“Oh,” she said, remembering, “I have this for you.” She handed it to him. It was smooth and hard, the size of a pebble: a wooden carving of a raccoon. “I saw it in a shop,” she explained, smiling. “It made me think of you. Do you like it?” 

It was a toy, a child’s plaything. He had no use for it whatsoever, but he looked at the hope in her eyes and the only thing he could say was, “yeah. Thanks.” 

She hugged him. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” She stood and ruffled his hair, which was choppy and uneven, the longest piece perhaps an inch long— for sanitary reasons, the nurses had explained as they sheared it off, Varian too sick to do anything to stop them. “You look different,” Rapunzel said, laughing. “Older.” 

Varian shrugged. “I am older,” he said. Once she’d left, and as soon as no one was looking, he shoved the basket of food under his bed— for the mice. 


	26. Chapter 26

Rapunzel wasn’t confrontational by nature, but she argued with the doctors constantly— they weren’t spending enough time with Varian, they weren’t feeding him enough, they were giving him the wrong medication, they didn’t care about him, they wanted him to die. She asked why he wasn’t allowed to wear his prosthesis and why they’d cut his hair without his permission. She demanded to know how he was progressing in therapy. Was he able to talk about Hans? His arm? His father? His mother? Whenever they brought him medicine, she was there, demanding to know what it was for. “It stops him from having nightmares,” the nurse explained, or “it stops him from feeling depressed,” or “it’s a painkiller,” or “it’s a nutrient supplement; it’ll keep him from getting thinner.” But he did get thinner, and the phantom pains in his arm increased, and he stayed depressed, and he continued to suffer from nightmares. Every effort to help him was in vain; he got worse and worse.

“Where’s his father?” the doctors asked Rapunzel. “You’re not his legal guardian. You’re merely—”

“I’m his friend,” Rapunzel said, drawing herself up, “and a _princess_, and I am perfectly capable of looking after him.”

“Sometimes a patient’s condition must worsen before it can improve. We must give him time.”

“Time to what? Starve to death?”

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“Well, do more.” She was at the end of her tether; her voice rose to almost a shout. “Do you need money? Is that it? My parents and I are willing to pay anything. Varian is very near and dear to us, and— and I’m not going to rest until he’s better!”

“Money isn’t the issue. He just needs time.”

“What about a magical solution to the problem?”

“Magic isn’t used here.”

She went outside. Varian was sitting in his usual spot in the grass, near, but not in, the communal garden. He was reading, which meant he must be having one of his better days. “You should leave them alone,” he said as she sat down. “They’re doing the best they can, and it’s not like you know more about medicine than they do.”

“But don’t you?”

“It’s not really my field. I tried it once and look what happened.” He nodded at his arm, or rather, his lack thereof. “Anyway, even if I did, why would they listen to me? I’m the insane one, remember?”

“You’re not insane.”

“No? Would a sane man kidnap the royal family, melt his own arm off, and drink poison every day?”

“What— poison? You drank poison?” She stared at him, appalled. “Every day?”

Varian closed the book. “Where’s my dad? What are you not telling me? I mean...” He faltered, then looked at her. “He is… still alive, isn’t he?”

Rapunzel was so startled she couldn’t answer for a moment. “Of course he’s alive. Haven’t you been getting his letters?”

“I have,” he said, looking away, “but… I don’t know. Couldn’t someone have faked his signature? To try and trick me?”

“Why would someone—?”

“How should I know? Maybe they think if I find out my dad’s dead, it’d upset me, and I’d do something bad.”

“Your dad’s alive, Varian,” Rapunzel said. “He’s just busy.”

“Doing what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What do you mean, ‘yeah, right?’”

“I mean, I don’t care.” He opened the book and pretended to read. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I’ll find out eventually, anyway.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Eugene both knew about Hans.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “Varian...”

“Look, we don’t have to talk about it. It doesn’t matter anymore. Just don’t expect me to trust you, okay?”

She stood up, filled with indignation. “How can you say that?”

“Just leave me alone. The doctors are right—I just need more time. I certainly don’t need _you._”

“I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t need your help.”

“How was I supposed to know Hans was going to hurt you? You never talk to me, Varian. You told me you were fine. You always say you’re fine when you’re not! How can anyone help you when you don’t let them?”

“Just leave me alone.”

“No.”

“Why not? Oh, wait! I know why.” He got to his feet, something she knew made him dizzy these days, but he hid it well beneath a glare. “Because you’re a spoiled princess and you can’t handle not getting your way.”

“I’m not—”

“On top of that, you’re a stupid, silly, empty-headed girly-girl who thinks everyone has to be her friend. Well, we’re not friends. I tried to kill you, remember?” He laughed suddenly, throwing his head back, and Rapunzel shivered to see how grotesque he looked when he smiled in his sad, sorry state, all skin and bones. “What am I saying? As if I would be here if you didn’t.”

“This wasn’t my idea,” she said quietly, “not any of it. We have to make the best of this. You have to start eating. Until you get better, you’re just going to be stuck here.”

He threw the book at her. She dodged it easily, but his anger was unmistakable. “Leave!”

“No,” she said, firmly, undaunted; she picked up the book and held it out to him. “You need me.”

“I don’t need you. I need him.” He’d exerted himself; his breaths were ragged. He snatched the book. “If you want to help, then you’ll tell me where he is and why he’s too busy to see me— or, better yet, you’ll bring him here.”

“I can’t.”

“Fine.” He sat down, with some effort that, again, he hid well—as if she hadn’t seen him in every aspect of suffering already. “Then just go.”

She stood there. He flipped a page, resting his chin in his hand, and after a few moments passed and she still hadn’t moved, he pretended to be surprised. “Oh?” he said, not looking at her, and she could hear the triumph in his tone, the joy at having been right. “Was there something else you needed?”

She said nothing. He smiled victoriously. 

“Sorry, Princess,” he said. “If you want to know about Cassandra, you’ll have to look somewhere else. My lips are sealed.”

“I know about your plan.”

His smile faded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said stiffly, after a pause. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “And I’ll make sure your father visits you. Then, if you want, I’ll never speak to you again. I’ll give you money— anything you want. I can bribe the doctors so they give you your arm back.”

This got his attention. Still, she kept talking.

“Please, I’ll do anything. Just tell me where she is. Or— if you don’t know —tell me whatever you can. No one’s heard from her since she left— she could be dead, for all I know, or she could be planning something— something awful.” She was almost in tears. “I have to find her. She’s my best friend. Please, Varian.”

He sighed, his gaze lingering on the book as if it was really inconveniencing to have to close it. Finally, he smiled at her, and for the first time, he almost looked like his old self again. “Very well,” he said, “in exchange for my arm, for bringing my father to me, and for keeping my plan a secret, I suppose I can see my way clear to tell you a few things.” 


End file.
